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This experimental study explores the possibility of using an existing Trombe wall as a space for year-round cultivation to increase building resource efficiency. To do so with the least cost to the building, a small 0.75 m2/5.45 m3 Trombe wall cavity space was retrofitted with shelves placed behind the glazing, additional ventilation, and a watering network to be able to grow 400 hydroponic Kratky basil plants in individual glass jars. Historical thermal observations made at the site over a year-long timespan were contrasted with the experimental readings. When fully equipped, the Trombe wall’s thermal mass increased by 51%, which had a balancing effect on the system, lowering the average daily thermal oscillations from 35.41 °C to 17.88 °C. The living plants and water have also had significant cooling (26.99 °C to 22.91 °C) and humidifying (39.88 to 47.74%) effects. The system’s energy efficiency, however, decreased from 26 to 18% (absorption) and from 85 to 46 (dissipation), lowering its energy contribution to the building by about 30%. The average plant’s lifespan within the Trombe wall was 46 days, with 15% of the specimens surpassing the 100-day mark. Over the course of a year, 20.55 kg of edible greens were grown in the Trombe wall. The experiment has shown that it is possible to grow the plants inside the Trombe wall cavity during the warmer half of the year, revealing many possible ways to improve the space’s comfort, yields, and energy efficiency.

Pool boiling in porous media has been applied in various thermal management systems by using latent heat and increasing the heat transfer area and thermal conduction path to improve the heat transfer performance. In mechanical equipment, vibration is an inevitable problem due to reasons such as engine operation and high-speed relative motion between transmission system components, which causes the system components to be affected by vibration forces or vibration accelerations. This study focuses on a review of published articles about the effects of mechanical vibration on the characteristics of boiling process in porous media by two aspects: heat transfer performance and bubble dynamics. Heat transfer coefficient (HTC) and critical heat flux are two main parameters used to measure the boiling heat transfer characteristics of porous media. For bubble dynamics investigations, properties such as migration, fragment, coalescence, departure diameter and frequency are the focus of research attention. Different mechanical vibration parameters, i.e., direction, frequency, and amplitude, will have different effects on the above characteristics. It is worth mentioning that the greatest influence occurs under resonance conditions, and this has been verified through experimental and simulation calculations. This review highlights the importance of considering mechanical vibrations in the design and optimization of porous media systems for efficient heat transfer applications. Further research is warranted to explore the detailed mechanisms and optimize the vibration parameters for enhanced heat transfer performance in thermal management systems using porous media.

Comfort temperature and sleep quality involving 20 participants were determined in two cases: Case A (arbitrary, controlled air-conditioner setting) and Case B (adjustment of 3 °C higher than the setting of Case A with cool bed linen). Data of indoor thermal comfort and electricity consumption were collected every night throughout the measurement period. Questionnaires on thermal comfort and sleep quality were distributed twice a night for a duration of three nights for each case; the first night was for respondents’ adaptation and the following two nights were for measurement. The sleep quality of the respondents was objectively measured using a commercially available activity tracker. Results found that most respondents were thermally comfortable in both cases, with 39% lower energy consumption reported for Case B compared to Case A. The thermal conditions of Case B were found to be more tolerable than those of Case A. Most respondents reported to have a calm and satisfied sleep for both cases. Comfort temperature and Sleep Efficiency Index (SEI) were found to be maintained in both cases.

Abstract Separating the effects of environmental factors and spatial distance on microbial composition is difficult when these factors covary. We examined the composition of ectomycorrhizal (EM) fungi along elevation gradients on geographically distant mountains to clarify the effect of climate at the regional scale. Soil cores were collected from various forest types along an elevation gradient in southwestern Japan. Fungal species were identified by the internal transcribed spacer regions of the rDNA using direct sequencing. The occurrence of fungal species in this study was compared with a previous study conducted on a mountain separated by ∼550 km. In total, we recorded 454 EM fungi from 330 of 350 soil cores. Forty-seven fungal species (∼20% of the total excluding singletons) were shared between two mountains, mostly between similar forest types on both mountains. Variation partitioning in redundancy analysis revealed that climate explained the largest variance in EM fungal composition. The similarity of forest tree composition, which is usually determined by climatic conditions, was positively correlated with the similarity of the EM fungal composition. However, the lack of large host effects implied that communities of forest trees and EM fungi may be determined independently by climate. Our data provide important insights that host plants and mutualistic fungi may respond to climate change idiosyncratically, potentially altering carbon and nutrient cycles in relation to the plant–fungus associations.

Public policy requires public support, which in turn implies a need to enable the public not just to understand policy but also to be engaged in its development. Where complex science and technology issues are involved in policy making, this takes time, so it is important to identify emerging issues of this type and prepare engagement plans. In our horizon scanning exercise, we used a modified Delphi technique. A wide group of people with interests in the science and policy interface (drawn from policy makers, policy adviser, practitioners, the private sector and academics) elicited a long list of emergent policy issues in which science and technology would feature strongly and which would also necessitate public engagement as policies are developed. This was then refined to a short list of top priorities for policy makers. Thirty issues were identified within broad areas of business and technology; energy and environment; government, politics and education; health, healthcare, population and aging; information, communication, infrastructure and transport; and public safety and national security.

A method of estimating surface radioactivity concentrations of key anthropogenic radionuclides from NaI(Tl) pulse-height distribution observed at a monitoring station (MS) was discussed. In the estimation, a realistic assumption on geometric distribution of source and obstacles around the detector of the MS including the infiltration of radionuclides into the ground was used and the results were compared with ones with a commonly used assumption of a uniformly distributed plane source. The surface radioactivity concentration was determined by comparing the count rates at the full-energy peak ranges between observation and calculation with an electron-photon transport code EGS5. It was shown that the estimated absolute values of concentration differed by a factor of ∼1.5 depending on the assumption of infiltration depth. The estimated surface concentrations of (131)I, (134)Cs and (137)Cs were in good agreement with ones determined by the in situ measurements with an HPGe detector and the cumulative values of daily surface depositions.