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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.

This study assessed the hand hygiene performance in French nursing homes using the consumption of alcohol-based hand rubs (AHRs) as a surrogate. Nursing homes from the 17 French regions were contacted to collect their AHR consumption and occupancy in 2018 and 2019. A total of 1290 nursing homes from 15 French regions participated in the survey. The estimated median number of hand hygiene actions per resident-day was 1.48 (interquartile range: 1.04-2.03) in 2018 and 1.60 (1.10-2.26) in 2019. A significantly higher AHR consumption was observed in public nursing homes with an infection control team or link nurse.

Among various bioreactors examined in anaerobic digestion and dark fermentation, UASB bioreactor has shown to be a promising alternative. However, mass transfer resistance and biomass washout have been the issues that reported as draw backs of the granular system in the literature. Another problem associated with such a system is its long start-up period as a result of biomass washout and long microbial granulation stage. In this paper, the results obtained from an UASFF bioreactor in methane (AD process) and hydrogen (DF process) production from POME, are presented to assess mass transfer of substrate into the granules and also study the role of internal packing used in the middle part of reactor in the process stability. The value of effectiveness factor, η, for AD and DF processes were calculated to be 0.96 and 0.94, respectively, indicating that there was no mass transfer resistance due to internal and/or external factors. The results showed that the packing material could retain biomass in the reactor and had outstanding contribution in the granulation enhancement. Its role as a supplementing treatment stage was more significant at low HRTs and up-flow velocities.

Purpose This study aims to consider environmental sustainability, a global challenge under the preview of sustainable development goals, highlighting the significance of knowledge economy in attaining sustainable aggregate demand behavior globally. For this purpose, 155 countries that have data available from 1995 to 2021 were selected. The purpose of selecting these countries is to test the global responsibility of the knowledge economy to attain environmental sustainability. Design/methodology/approach Results are estimated with the help of panel quantile regression. The empirical existence of aggregate demand-based environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) was tested using non-linear tests. Moreover, principal component analysis has been incorporated to construct the knowledge economy index. Findings U-shaped aggregate demand-based EKC at global level is validated. However, environmental deterioration increases with an additional escalation after US$497.945m in aggregate demand. As a determinant, the knowledge economy is reducing CO2 emissions. The knowledge economy has played a significant role in global responsibility, shifting the EKC downward and extending the CO2 reduction phase for every selected country. Further, urbanization, energy intensity, financial development and trade openness significantly deteriorate the environmental quality. Originality/value This study contains the empirical existence of aggregate demand-based EKC. The role of the knowledge economy is examined through an index which is calculated by using four pillars of the knowledge economy (technology, innovations, education and institutions). This study is based on a combined panel of all the countries for which the data was available.

This paper is concerned with the risk management practices of an electricity retailer motivated by the Dutch electricity market. We examine the effectiveness of the existing base- and peak-load futures contracts as a risk management tool for the electricity retailers. We analytically characterize the retailer’s optimal hedging policy as a function of the serial correlation of the prices and the demand profiles of its customers. We find that the retailer typically over-hedges in the futures market, and the over-hedging amount increases when both base- and peak-load contracts are used. Our findings indicate that although the existing contracts in the futures market are quite efficient to replicate the exposure from profiled customers, when industrial consumers and renewable generation are included to the retailer’s portfolio, the effectiveness of such contracts decreases substantially. In our motivating example, hedging the risk of the profiled customers with base-load contracts, the firm may reduce the variance of its cash flows by 85.9%. In addition to the base-load contracts, including peak-load contracts into the hedging portfolio of the retailer increases the efficiency of hedging to 89.3%. However, when we consider the aggregate portfolio of the retailer including profiled customers, industrial consumers and renewable contracts, the efficiency of hedging through the existing futures contracts goes down as low as 32.8% during certain periods. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.

Urea is the most common nitrogen (N) fertilizer in agriculture, due to its cheaper price and high N content. Although the reciprocal influence between NO3- and NH4+ nutrition are well known, urea (U) interactions with these N-inorganic forms are poorly studied. Here, the responses of two tomato genotypes to ammonium nitrate (AN), U alone or in combination were investigated. Significant differences in root and shoot biomass between genotypes were observed. Under AN+U supply, Linosa showed higher biomass compared to UC82, exhibiting also higher values for many root architectural traits. Linosa showed higher Nitrogen Uptake (NUpE) and Utilization Efficiency (NUtE) compared to UC82, under AN+U nutrition. Interestingly, Linosa exhibited also a significantly higher DUR3 transcript abundance. These results underline the beneficial effect of AN+U nutrition, highlighting new molecular and physiological strategies for selecting crops that can be used for more sustainable agriculture. The data suggest that translocation and utilization (NUtE) might be a more important component of NUE than uptake (NUpE) in tomato. Genetic variation could be a source for useful NUE traits in tomato; further experiments are needed to dissect the NUtE components that confer a higher ability to utilize N in Linosa.

Abstract In the context of climate change, global industrialised nations are grappling with transforming energy networks to support a low carbon future. Using an energy justice framework this work aims to understand holistic outcomes of one low-carbon energy network intervention: demand-side response enacted on domestic heat pumps. By exploring participants’ lived experience of a pilot project, from recruitment to installation and use, this work reveals how injustices were reduced, introduced and amplified. Choice, consent, cost, comfort, disruption, and control are highlighted as key aspects of interest when considering the distributive, procedural, and recognition implications of this domestic innovation. For a net reduction of energy injustices to be realised, we highlight the need for project designers to work in partnership with end users to optimise the benefits for the household and the electricity system. Whilst this is a UK study, the themes and findings are internationally applicable for interventions that aim to harness the flexibility of heating, the largest global energy end-use.

Energy management is an enabling technique to guarantee the reliability and economy of hybrid electric systems. This paper proposes a novel machine learning-based energy management strategy for a hybrid electric bus (HEB), with an emphasized consciousness of both thermal safety and degradation of the onboard lithium-ion battery (LIB) system. Firstly, the deep deterministic policy gradient (DDPG) algorithm is combined with an expert-assistance system, for the first time, to enhance the “cold start” performance and optimize the power allocation of HEB. Secondly, in the framework of the proposed algorithm, the penalties to over-temperature and LIB degradation are embedded to improve the management quality in terms of the thermal safety enforcement and overall driving cost reduction. The proposed strategy is tested under different road missions to validate its superiority over state-of-the-art techniques in terms of training efficiency and optimization performance.