Measurement of interior green space and its impact on indoor environmental quality

Indoor environmental quality directly affects the comfort, performance, and well-being of occupants. It is an important issue given people spend a large amount of time indoors. Plants absorb sunlight, capture carbon dioxide and transpire water. Thus, adding greenery such as potted plants and green walls to indoor environments has attracted interest as a way to positively influence these three aspects of indoor environmental quality and, by extension, the well-being of people using these spaces. However, experimental studies have focused on laboratory or controlled settings rather than the indoor environments that people use such as offices. This thesis aimed to develop a rapid and simple method to quantify interior greenery; measure the impact of interior plants on CO2 concentration, air temperature and relative humidity in office settings; and to evaluate the effects of indoor plants on hygrothermal comfort in naturally ventilated and air-conditioned office environments. In the first part of this thesis I developed an Interior Green View Index to rapidly measure interior greenery. This method is based on capturing and classifying 360 panoramic images taken with a conventional 360 red-green-blue camera. There was a high correlation between the iGVI and manual measurements of indoor greenery, though the accuracy of the iGVI declined in larger and highly illuminated interior spaces. These results suggested that the iGVI method is a useful tool for quickly estimating interior greenery. For the second part of this thesis I investigated the impact of indoor plants on three aspects of IEQ: relative humidity, indoor air temperature, and CO2 concentration in naturally ventilated offices. Using a Latin square design, three treatments control, low volume, and high volume of Nephrolepis exaltata: were rotated across three offices over six periods. Relative humidity increased significantly with the number of indoor plants, from a median of 29.1% to 38.9% and 49.2%. My results support using indoor plants to increase relative humidity, which enhances some aspects of well-being and productivity, particularly in drier climates. In the third part of this thesis, I tested the effect of interior greenery on hygrothermal comfort in offices with differing ventilation systems: naturally ventilated and air-conditioned. Using a Latin square design, varying volumes of Nephrolepis exaltata were introduced into three offices over six days. Indoor plants did not significantly alter hygrothermal comfort in air-conditioned nor naturally ventilated settings. Hygrothermal comfort in both air-conditioned and naturally ventilated offices was consistently rated as 'marginally comfortable', regardless of the volumes of plants introduced. This thesis contributes to the understanding of interior green spaces in office environments through three main aspects: developing a rapid method to quantify interior greenery, investigating the impact of indoor plants on environmental quality, and analyzing hygrothermal comfort in different ventilation settings. The key findings demonstrate that while indoor plants significantly increase relative humidity, they have minimal measurable effects on CO2 levels and air temperature in modern office environments. This limited impact is likely due to advanced ventilation systems and controlled climates in contemporary offices. However, the aesthetic and potential psychological benefits of indoor plants remain notable. The thesis suggests that interior green spaces, while not a standalone solution for all aspects of indoor environmental quality, can be an effective component in a holistic approach to improving office environments

Introduction: Civil Society in Japan

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Endoscopic management of hypopharyngeal diverticulum

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The where and the why: sources of information about COVID-19 vaccines among migrants in Australia

Background: Access to timely, accurate health-related information can protect migrants’ health during public health crises. However, unmet language needs, social alienation and mistrust were among the barriers that migrants faced in accessing official information about COVID-19 and recommended vaccines. This study aimed to explore information-seeking behaviour about COVID-19 vaccines among Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMRO) born migrants in Australia. Methods: With an explanatory mixed-method approach, we employed an online survey followed by semi-structured interviews. Survey and interviews were advertised through migrants-specific organisations' websites and social media posts, and Facebook advertisements. The survey collected data on socio-demographics, sources of information, preferred communication channels and information-gathering capacity from 300 individuals between September and November 2021. Seventeen adults participated in interviews between December 2021 and February 2022. The qualitative data were analysed using inductive thematic analysis. Results: The survey participants’ mean age was 41.4 ± 11.8 years and 52% were male. Around 70% reported that the Australian government was among their main sources of information, and 37% preferred receiving information via email or SMS. Around 70% agreed that they can easily access the information they need, feel included in government communications, and can distinguish between fake and good information. Around 60% agreed they could access information in their language, while approximately 50% of respondents indicated they had difficulty understanding vaccine information. Analysis of the interview transcripts revealed that the information sources used depended on their perceived need, their information-gathering capacity, ease of access and trust in sources. Lack of trust in official sources made it more difficult to accept uncertainty. Sources of information favoured included community networks and personal experience. Conclusion: To ensure equitable access to health information, health communications should be tailored to migrants’ specific needs, preferences and information-gathering capacity. Such communication should be practised in all aspects of health, not only during a public health crisis, to improve trust in official sources.Peer-reviewe

Hydride Rebound

Combining experiment and theory, the mechanisms of H2 activation by the potassium-bridged aluminyl dimer K2[Al(NON)]2 (NON=4,5-bis(2,6-diisopropylanilido)-2,7-di-tertbutyl-9,9-dimethylxanthene) and its monomeric K+-sequestered counterpart have been investigated. These systems show diverging reactivity towards the activation of dihydrogen, with the dimeric species undergoing formal oxidative addition of H2 at each Al centre under ambient conditions, and the monomer proving to be inert to dihydrogen addition. Noting that this K+ dependence is inconsistent with classical models of single-centre reactivity for carbene-like Al(I) species, we rationalize these observations instead by a cooperative frustrated Lewis pair (FLP)-type mechanism (for the dimer) in which the aluminium centre acts as the Lewis base and the K+ centres as Lewis acids. In contrast to previous theoretical work on this precise system by Schaefer and co-workers, the potassium ions are shown to play explicit roles in stabilizing a nascent 2-bridging hydride, formed by heterolytic H−H bond cleavage (with accompanying protonation of the aluminium-centred lone pair). K-to-Al hydride “rebound” into the vacant aluminium-centred p-orbital then completes the net addition of H2 via sequential H+/H− transfer. The experimentally determined kinetic isotope effect (kH/kD=2.6) reflects a high degree of bond activation in the transition state (as predicted quantum chemically).The authors wish to acknowledge the Irish Centre for High-End Computing (ICHEC) for the provision of computational facilities and support. K.M.B. thanks the Irish Research Council for funding under grant number GOIPG/2022/470. T.K. thanks the RSC for a Research Enablement Grant (E21-7643704122). L.P.G. thanks the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Inorganic Chemistry for Future Manufacturing (OxICFM; EP/S023828/1) for studentship support. The authors wish to acknowledge the Irish Centre for High\u2010End Computing (ICHEC) for the provision of computational facilities and support. K.M.B. thanks the Irish Research Council for funding under grant number GOIPG/2022/470. T.K. thanks the RSC for a Research Enablement Grant (E21\u20107643704122). L.P.G. thanks the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Inorganic Chemistry for Future Manufacturing (OxICFM; EP/S023828/1) for studentship support.Peer-reviewe

Conceptual Richardson

Book Abstract: The preoccupations of eighteenth-century novelist Samuel Richardson—the inequities of gender and sexuality; race and white femininity; masculinity, sadism, and control; religion and selfhood; authorship and artistic form—continue to resonate with contemporary readers. This fresh collection reconsiders his oeuvre, expanding and significantly updating critical debate on its meaning and importance. In these lively and engaging essays, contributors examine historically overlooked works, provide new readings of his best-known novels Pamela and Clarissa, and stake a serious claim for the importance of his final novel, Sir Charles Grandison. Diverse, inventive, and provocative, these essays demonstrate the complexity, relevance, and surprising legacies of Richardson’s novels and characters—finding traces in post-conceptual poetry, detective fiction, and in the fantasies of historical romance. Revisiting Richardson reflects on a decade of scholarship while delivering innovative perspectives on an author whose work continues to be indispensable for understanding the history of the novel.Peer-reviewe

Navigating the Embodied Agent: Design and Optimisation of Object-Goal Visual Navigation System

Embodied Artificial Intelligence (Embodied AI) represents a significant shift from traditional static computations to dynamic interactions with the environment, interactions that not only respond to but also actively shape the physical world. Within this paradigm, Object-Goal Visual Navigation (ObjNav) is pivotal, as it equips robots with the capability to navigate and pinpoint specific target objects, an essential function that underpins the operational framework of Embodied AI systems. A typical reinforcement learning based ObjNav system comprises two primary components:(i) a visual perception module that interprets the scene by extracting navigation cues, such as the target's location and its spatial relationships with surrounding elements; and (ii) a navigation policy module that processes both the current visual inputs and historical navigation data to determine the optimal action. This ensures that the ObjNav system not only recognises its targets but also formulates effective navigation strategies, thereby enabling robust and adaptable performance in dynamic real-world environments. This thesis investigates Object-goal Visual Navigation systems, focusing on both visual perception and navigation policy. We enhance visual perception by leveraging object relationships within scenes. Meanwhile, we first concentrate on preventing the navigation policy from predicting actions that often lead to failure. Then, we shift our focus to prioritising information most relevant to the current navigational step. We achieve this through three key contributions: In Chapter 3, we enhance object-driven visual navigation using object relation graphs (ORG), trial-driven imitation learning (IL), and a memory-augmented tentative policy network (TPN). ORG improves visual understanding by modelling object relationships. IL and TPN help create robust navigation policies, guiding the agent away from unproductive actions and promoting efficient navigation. In Chapter 4, we introduce VTNet, a Visual Transformer Network for learning informative visual representations. VTNet emphasises spatial locations and object relationships, using attention mechanisms to create informative visual information for navigation decisions. A pre-training scheme aligns these representations with navigation signals for effective policy learning. In Chapter 5, we address the impact of navigation states on effectiveness and efficiency by introducing the History-inspired Navigation Policy Learning (HiNL) framework. HiNL uses historical navigation data to improve current decision-making. It incorporates a History-aware State Estimation (HaSE) module to reduce the influence of past states and a History-based State Regularisation (HbSR) technique to minimise correlations among states during training. This enables the agent to adapt to changing environments and make informed decisions. In Chapter 6, we introduce the Experience-aware Action Cogitator (ExAC), a framework that utilises the power of Large Language Models (LLMs) to elevate decision-making in ObjNav. By integrating insights derived from both expert-informed and trial-and-error experiences, ExAC refines the LLM's decision framework. Consequently, the model not only predicts effective navigation actions with remarkable intuition but also articulates the reasoning behind its choices, thereby enhancing the transparency and reliability of navigation in complex indoor settings. In conclusion, this thesis has tackled multiple open challenges in Embodied AI, especially in the area of Object-goal Navigation, showing improvements in both navigation effectiveness and efficiency in unseen environments. Through this work, we aim to foster conversations among academics in the Embodied AI space while also motivating future efforts and collaborations that would push the field toward more challenging real-world problems

Flirting with Autocracy in Indonesia:

After ruling Indonesia for a decade, Joko Widodo (or popularly called "Jokowi") left the presidency in 2024 amid a heated debate over his democratic record. While his high approval ratings indicated support in the broader population, pro-democracy activists were scathing. Indeed, under his presidency, many democratic achievements of previous periods eroded. Yet democracy, however damaged, survived Jokowi’s rule. This article adds to scholarship on this outcome of a harmed but enduring Indonesian democracy. It looks at how Jokowi’s majoritarian thinking led him to undermine democracy when he felt he had the majority’s support for his actions. Believing that democracy is doing what the majority wants, approves, or tolerates, he used polls to identify segments of democracy he could attack. At the same time, his majoritarianism also set him limits: if a majority was opposed, he retreated. This left Indonesia with a declining democracy, but one that did not cross over into fully authoritarian territory.The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Australian Research Council (grant number DP150104277).Peer-reviewe

Elite Collusion in Indonesia

After a largely successful post­authoritarian transition, Indonesia has experienced democratic backsliding since the 2010s. this backsliding accelerated under the presidency of Joko Widodo (2014­2024), but it has not yet pushed the Indonesian polity into a full­blown autocracy. I argue that Indonesia’s specific pathway to democratic backsliding prefigured this outcome. While elites have colluded to share power and allow the president to engage in executive aggrandizement, they have set limits to the latter’s potential authoritar­ ian ambitions. For example, they rejected Widodo’s attempt to extend his time in power beyond the con­ stitutionally allowed two terms. thus, elites have both produced executive aggrandizement and contained its scope. this pattern has protected Indonesian democ­ racy from a full collapse, but it has produced a gradual decline, reducing the chances of democratic revitali­ zation through formal or contentious politics.Peer-reviewe

Administration of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Protectorate

Presented to both Houses of Parliament by Command of His Majesty. November 1908