7,733 research outputs found

    R-strategies in circular economy : Textile, battery, and agri-food value chains

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    This report discusses the circular economy model through circular economy strategies, the R-strategies, in three different value chains: textile, battery, and agri-food. The R-strategies can be classified under three approaches: 1) smarter product use and manufacture (R0 Refuse, R1 Rethink, R2 Reduce), 2) life extension strategies (R3 Reuse, R4 Repair, R5 Refurbish, R6 Remanufacture, R7 Re-purpose), and 3) creative material application (R8 Recycle, R9 Recover). Often, the impact on circularity and overall sustainability is likely higher in the beginning of the material value chain. However, the selection of the most optimal R-strategy is always case specific and should be based on a holistic, system wide approach. The report gives several examples of business models applying different R-strategies in the selected value chains. The examples show the similarities and differences between the value chains and which strategies have more importance in which value chains. In the textile value chain, currently the most important aim is to replace fast fashion with longer product use (R3, R4, R5) and essentially reduce production and consumption volumes (R0, R1, R2). Textile fibres can be circulated (R6, R7, R8) to some extent, but in every round, there is some wearing of the material and the quality of the recycled fibre deteriorates in comparison to virgin fibre. In the battery value-chain, increased recycling of metals (R8) is crucial to meet the future need of batteries in various solutions including electric vehicles and energy storage. Thus, recycling technologies need to be further developed to meet the recycling targets. There is also active research and development activities in the field of substitution (R0) with new battery chemistries and even replacing graphite with renewable lignin-based material. In the agri-food value chain, avoiding food loss and food waste (R0) is clearly a low hanging fruit since even one third of all food is estimated of being wasted. When it comes to circularity in the agri-food value chain, it is best supported by increasing local food production, where transport distances are short and do not create a barrier for efficient utilization of side-streams (R8, R9). The circulation of nutrients in manure is also essential

    Beam scanning by liquid-crystal biasing in a modified SIW structure

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    A fixed-frequency beam-scanning 1D antenna based on Liquid Crystals (LCs) is designed for application in 2D scanning with lateral alignment. The 2D array environment imposes full decoupling of adjacent 1D antennas, which often conflicts with the LC requirement of DC biasing: the proposed design accommodates both. The LC medium is placed inside a Substrate Integrated Waveguide (SIW) modified to work as a Groove Gap Waveguide, with radiating slots etched on the upper broad wall, that radiates as a Leaky-Wave Antenna (LWA). This allows effective application of the DC bias voltage needed for tuning the LCs. At the same time, the RF field remains laterally confined, enabling the possibility to lay several antennas in parallel and achieve 2D beam scanning. The design is validated by simulation employing the actual properties of a commercial LC medium

    Effective and proportionate implementation of the DMA

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    Biosimilars in Europe

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    This reprint examines regulatory, pricing and reimbursement issues related to the market access and uptake of off-patent biologics, biosimilars, next-generation biologics and competing innovative medicines in European countries

    Modelling, Monitoring, Control and Optimization for Complex Industrial Processes

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    This reprint includes 22 research papers and an editorial, collected from the Special Issue "Modelling, Monitoring, Control and Optimization for Complex Industrial Processes", highlighting recent research advances and emerging research directions in complex industrial processes. This reprint aims to promote the research field and benefit the readers from both academic communities and industrial sectors

    Mining Privacy-Preserving Association Rules based on Parallel Processing in Cloud Computing

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    With the onset of the Information Era and the rapid growth of information technology, ample space for processing and extracting data has opened up. However, privacy concerns may stifle expansion throughout this area. The challenge of reliable mining techniques when transactions disperse across sources is addressed in this study. This work looks at the prospect of creating a new set of three algorithms that can obtain maximum privacy, data utility, and time savings while doing so. This paper proposes a unique double encryption and Transaction Splitter approach to alter the database to optimize the data utility and confidentiality tradeoff in the preparation phase. This paper presents a customized apriori approach for the mining process, which does not examine the entire database to estimate the support for each attribute. Existing distributed data solutions have a high encryption complexity and an insufficient specification of many participants' properties. Proposed solutions provide increased privacy protection against a variety of attack models. Furthermore, in terms of communication cycles and processing complexity, it is much simpler and quicker. Proposed work tests on top of a realworld transaction database demonstrate that the aim of the proposed method is realistic

    Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 2022.

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    Towards a framework for the study of ongoing socio-technical transitions: explored through the UK self-driving car paradigm

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    The UK government set out to see self-driving cars on roads by 2021. The idea of a self-driving car has been around for almost a century, and more recent technological developments have made self-driving cars a real-life possibility. While a fully self-driving automobility system is some distance away, real-life testing is bringing autonomous driving closer to consumers. Some claim this to be the biggest disruption to mobility systems since the invention of the car. Claims about the potential of self-driving mobility range from economic and social benefits to environmental improvements. A significant ambiguity however remains concerning how they will be deployed and how the technological innovation will affect mobility aims and related transport and infrastructure systems. So far, the vast majority of studies on AVs have focused on the technology aspect of this transition lacking contributions that address this from a broader socio-technical perspective. With the accelerated adoption of new technologies, Sustainability Transitions has come to prominence as a research area that seeks to understand and guide socio-technical transitions toward sustainable trajectories. Socio-technical transitions theoretical framework has been used to understand historical transitions in the majority of empirical applications. The ability to apply the same framework to ongoing transitions and to guide these towards sustainable outcomes remains unsubstantiated. To address this gap this thesis examines the foundations of multi-level perspective (MLP) – a socio-technical transitions analytical framework – and develops an analytical framework (SRPM – System Rules Pathways Mechanisms) that is appropriate for the study of ongoing transitions. The refocused framework incorporates critical realism to focus analysis on causation and causal mechanisms. It is used to analyse the ongoing socio-technical transition to self-driving cars in the UK through a four-step analytical process. The study is framed as a case-based process mechanism study. The four steps are: i) contextualisation of the ongoing transition to AVs in the UK as a socio-technical transition based on the MLP theoretical framework; ii) identification of internal and external structural relations within the transition through the notion of rules and the morphogenetic cycle; iii) aligning observed processes with transition pathways to theorise about the trajectories of the transition; iv) identification of causal mechanisms in the observed processes through identification of demi-regularities through data analysis of grey literature and theorisation about mechanisms through the development of mechanism sketches and schemata. The thesis makes two contributions to knowledge: i) methodological and ii) empirical. The methodological contribution is the development of the SRPM analytical framework to study an ongoing socio-technical transition, and the empirical contribution is the application of this framework to the study of the ongoing transition to driverless cars in the UK
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