A Tale of Evaluation and Reporting in UK Smart Cities

Global trends towards urbanisation are associated with wide-ranging challenges and opportunities for cities. Smart technologies create new opportunities for a range of smart city development and regeneration programmes designed to address the environmental, economic and social challenges concentrated in cities. Whilst smart city programmes have received much publicity, there has been much less discussion about evaluation of smart city programmes and the measurement of their outcomes for cities. Existing evaluation approaches have been criticised as non-standard and inadequate, focusing more on implementation processes and investment metrics than on the impacts of smart city programmes on strategic city outcomes and progress. To examine this, the SmartDframe project conducted research on city approaches to the evaluation of smart city projects and programmes, and reporting of impacts on city outcomes. This included the ‘smarter’ UK cities of Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester, Milton Keynes and Peterborough. City reports and interviews with representative local government authorities informed the case study analysis. The report provides a series of smart city case studies that exemplify contemporary city practices, offering a timely, insightful contribution to city discourse about best practice approaches to evaluation and reporting of complex smart city projects and programmes

City approaches to smart city evaluation and reporting: case studies in the United Kingdom

Smart technologies create opportunities for urban development and regeneration, leading to a proliferation of projects/programmes designed to address city strategies around environmental, economic and social challenges. Whilst there is considerable critical debate on the merits of smart city developments, there has been surprisingly little research on the evaluation of smart interventions, and the outcomes of embedded smart technologies for cities and citizens. This examines case-study research undertaken in Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester, Milton Keynes and Peterborough, on city approaches to smart city evaluation and reporting. Findings exemplify contemporary city evaluation and reporting practices, challenges, and recommendations to support smart urban development

Understanding the Scope of Business Law Clinics: Perspectives from the United Kingdom, Israel and the United States

The impetus for the emergence of business law clinics across jurisdictions is remarkably similar: commercially orientated education and development of students combined with a reconceptualised social justice agenda which embraces entrepreneurial activity in all forms. Business law clinics face the challenge of balancing the interests of students and clients,of service provision versus learning environment, within a distinctly entrepreneurial environment. To achieve this, we must enter into a dialogue and embrace a common mission. This article addresses the gap in the literature with a comparative analysis of the Business and Commercial Law Clinic at Northumbria Law School, England; The Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya Legal Clinic for Start-Ups at Radzyner Law School, Israel; and BrooklynLaw Incubator & Policy Clinic at Brooklyn Law School, United States. We posit that business law clinics should be valued for their rich educational experience, the important assistance they provide and the wider benefits they bestow on teaching institutions

Imaging resonant dissipation from individual atomic defects in graphene

Conversion of electric current into heat involves microscopic processes that operate on nanometer length-scales and release minute amounts of power. While central to our understanding of the electrical properties of materials, individual mediators of energy dissipation have so far eluded direct observation. Using scanning nano-thermometry with sub-micro K sensitivity we visualize and control phonon emission from individual atomic defects in graphene. The inferred electron-phonon 'cooling power spectrum' exhibits sharp peaks when the Fermi level comes into resonance with electronic quasi-bound states at such defects, a hitherto uncharted process. Rare in the bulk but abundant at graphene's edges, switchable atomic-scale phonon emitters define the dominant dissipation mechanism. Our work offers new insights for addressing key materials challenges in modern electronics and engineering dissipation at the nanoscale

PAK4 regulates stemness and progression in endocrine resistant ER-positive metastatic breast cancer

Despite the effectiveness of endocrine therapies to treat estrogen receptor-positive (ER+) breast tumours, two thirds of patients will eventually relapse due to de novo or acquired resistance to these agents. Cancer Stem-like Cells (CSCs), a rare cell population within the tumour, accumulate after anti-estrogen treatments and are likely to contribute to their failure. Here we studied the role of p21-activated kinase 4 (PAK4) as a promising target to overcome endocrine resistance and disease progression in ER+ breast cancers. PAK4 predicts for resistance to tamoxifen and poor prognosis in 2 independent cohorts of ER+ tumours. We observed that PAK4 strongly correlates with CSC activity in metastatic patient-derived samples irrespective of breast cancer subtype. However, PAK4-driven mammosphere-forming CSC activity increases alongside progression only in ER+ metastatic samples. PAK4 activity increases in ER+ models during acquired resistance to endocrine therapies. Targeting PAK4 with either CRT PAKi, a small molecule inhibitor of PAK4, or with specific siRNAs abrogates CSC activity/self-renewal in clinical samples and endocrine-resistant cells. Together, our findings establish that PAK4 regulates stemness during disease progression and that its inhibition reverses endocrine resistance in ER+ breast cancers

Proton and molecular permeation through the basal plane of monolayer graphene oxide

Two-dimensional (2D) materials offer a prospect of membranes that combine negligible gas permeability with high proton conductivity and could outperform the existing proton exchange membranes used in various applications including fuel cells. Graphene oxide (GO), a well-known 2D material, facilitates rapid proton transport along its basal plane but proton conductivity across it remains unknown. It is also often presumed that individual GO monolayers contain a large density of nanoscale pinholes that lead to considerable gas leakage across the GO basal plane. Here we show that relatively large, micrometer-scale areas of monolayer GO are impermeable to gases, including helium, while exhibiting proton conductivity through the basal plane which is nearly two orders of magnitude higher than that of graphene. These findings provide insights into the key properties of GO and demonstrate that chemical functionalization of 2D crystals can be utilized to enhance their proton transparency without compromising gas impermeability

Proton and molecular permeation through the basal plane of monolayer graphene oxide

Two-dimensional (2D) materials offer a prospect of membranes that combine negligible gas permeability with high proton conductivity and could outperform the existing proton exchange membranes used in various applications including fuel cells. Graphene oxide (GO), a well-known 2D material, facilitates rapid proton transport along its basal plane but proton conductivity across it remains unknown. It is also often presumed that individual GO monolayers contain a large density of nanoscale pinholes that lead to considerable gas leakage across the GO basal plane. Here we show that relatively large, micrometer-scale areas of monolayer GO are impermeable to gases, including helium, while exhibiting proton conductivity through the basal plane which is nearly two orders of magnitude higher than that of graphene. These findings provide insights into the key properties of GO and demonstrate that chemical functionalization of 2D crystals can be utilized to enhance their proton transparency without compromising gas impermeability

A Fluxgate-Based Current Sensor for DC Bias Elimination in a Dual Active Bridge Converter

A concern with the isolation transformer in a dual active bridge (DAB) dc-dc converter is the dc bias in magnetization. This article proposes a fluxgate-based current sensor to measure the dc component mixed with a large, high-frequency ac current. Compared with a commercial Hall effect current sensor, the proposed sensor significantly reduces measurement error. This article presents the working principle and design considerations. A prototype is demonstrated for dc bias elimination control in a DAB converter