• Energy Research
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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.

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.

Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) is advocated for achieving sustainable transportation through development around transit stations. TOD’s global implementation revealed varied outcomes, with many cities failing to achieve the intended objectives. TOD implementation in the Jakarta Metropolitan area still in its infancy. Through a geospatial information system and a survey of 400 commuters who live inside the 1 km radius of planned TOD, this longitudinal study aimed to examine an eight-year lapse between 2013 and 2020 of changes in two aspects, specifically land-use and spatial distribution as well as commuters’ travel behavior and preferences in TOD implementation and travel changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Key findings are as follows: increased diversity in the residential function around planned TOD areas in the Jakarta capital and a decrease in the suburbs, reflecting the commuters’ improved readiness to reside in planned TOD areas. Furthermore, kinship relations were the commuters’ main reason when selecting house locations, with no capacity to change their workplaces. A significant increase in public facilities at the expense of green open space (GOS) indicates that TOD implementation was conducted by the government with the sole authority to manage GOS, lacking private sector involvement. The cost factor was the most dominant reason for the commuter’s use of public transportation, instead of new transport modes such as MRT and LRT. Moreover, the commuter’s travel behavior in all studied transit stations, whilst it showed evidence of changes in time and frequency, was not greatly influenced by the COVID-19 related restrictions.

Abstract In situ and ex situ spatially-resolved techniques are employed to investigate reactant distribution and its impacts in a polymer electrolyte fuel cell. Temperature distribution data provides further evidence for secondary flows inferred from reactant imaging data, highlighting the contribution of convection in heat as well as reactant distribution. Water build-up from neutron tomography is linked to component degradation, matching the pattern seen in the reactant distribution and thus suggesting that high, non-uniform local current densities shape degradation patterns in fuel cells. The correlations shown between different techniques confirm the use of the versatile reactant imaging technique, which is used to compare commonly used flow field designs. Among serpentine-type designs, the single serpentine is superior in both equivalent current density and reactant distribution, showing large contributions from convective flow. On the other hand, the interdigitated design is shown to produce larger equivalent current densities, while showing a somewhat poorer reactant distribution. Considering the correlations drawn between the techniques, this suggests that the interdigitated design compromises durability in favour of power output. The results highlight how established techniques provide a robust background for the use of a new and flexible imaging technique toward designing advanced flow fields for practical fuel cell applications.

Redox flow batteries are promising devices for large-scale stationary energy storage.

Abstract A high temperature polymer electrolyte membrane water electrolyser (PEMWE) was investigated at temperatures between 80 and 130 °C and pressures between 0.5 and 4 bar. Nanometer size Ru 0.7 Ir 0.3 O 2 and Pt/C were employed as anode and cathode catalysts respectively. The catalyst coated on membrane (CCM) method was used to fabricate the membrane electrode assemblies. The membrane, oxygen evolution catalysts and MEAs were characterized with SEM, XRD and TEM. The influence of high temperature and pressure was investigated using in situ electrochemical measurements. Increasing temperature and pressure produced higher current densities for oxygen evolution, and smaller terminal voltages. The high temperature PEMWE achieved a voltage of 1.51 V at a current density of 1 A cm −2 , at 130 °C and 4 bar pressure.

ABSTRACTObjectivesElectronic health records (EHRs) contain rich information for understanding health conditions and their treatment. A large proportion of clinical information in EHRs is stored in narrative free text. This text is currently under-utilised due to privacy concerns, as it is harder to remove patient identifiers from text than from structured data. Automated de-identification of clinical text is now possible using heuristic or machine-learning-based systems. We conducted a review of the literature on patient and public understanding and attitudes towards the use of patients’ medical data for research, particularly seeking views on free text. The aim was to inform and develop a governance framework for the de-identification and use of medical free text for research, and to instigate a wider discussion on the topic. ApproachWe undertook a systematic search in Web of Science and ScienceDirect with terms such as “public attitudes” and “electronic health records”. 3480 results were sifted by title, abstract and full text. Forty-two articles were retained for review, these reported on studies of patient and public perceptions, understanding and attitudes towards the use of patients’ medical data in research. ResultsResearch participants were positively inclined towards information in records being used in research “for the greater good”. However, no clear patterns by age, ethnicity, education level or SES emerged as to who was more favourable to data use. Participants generally trusted health care professionals and public sector researchers with de-identified medical data, whereas government health agencies and commercial entities were not trusted. No explicitly feared harms associated with data use were articulated. However the general objections appeared to be a dislike of personal data being exploited for commercial gain, and a dislike of personal data being moved around and used without personal knowledge or consent. Notably the use of EHR medical text for research did not emerge as a specific patient/public concern. De-identification was important to participants but text was not identified as a distinct privacy risk.ConclusionThis review demonstrates that transparency about data usage, and working “for the greater good” rather than financial gain, appear to be the most important public concerns to be addressed when using patients’ medical data. Governance frameworks for using EHRs must now be enhanced to provide for the use of medical text. This will involve informing both regulators and the public about the current capabilities of automated de-identification, and developing other assurances to safeguard patients’ privacy.