Fabric sensors – modelling deformation in knitted fabrics

Fabric sensors are made from knitted conductive yarn and can be used to measure extension in wearable technologies and composite structures. Wearable technologies have considerable potential in sport and medical applications, for example recording limb movement in injury monitoring or sporting technique analysis. The electrical resistance through the fabric varies with extension due to the change in contact area and contact force between yarns. The resistance can be interpreted using correlations with displacement to calculate the deformation experienced by the fabric sensor. This paper describes a study which works towards a realistic digital model of a single jersey knitted fabric sensor by considering a non-idealised monofilament yarn of varied cross-section in a dense knit geometry. Models are created using TexGen, software developed at the University of Nottingham, taking advantage of its facility to create complex cross-sections which vary along the length of the yarn. Subsequent finite element analysis using ABAQUS with small representative volume elements and periodic boundary conditions showed high peak stresses at the boundaries, possibly caused by the contact surface being split across the boundary. Subsequent simulations using larger numbers of stitches and with relaxed boundary conditions in the x-direction showed more realistic deformations including reduction in width and curling of the material, reducing the impact of the boundaries on the overall fabric simulation, but with significant computational cost. The results give an initial assessment of deformations and contact pressures, which will aid understanding of the non-linear response found in mechanical testing and improve knowledge of how the inter-yarn contact varies. This work lays the foundation for further work which will aim to improve the similarity between the digital knit geometry and the physical sample, model larger areas of knitted fabric, include residual stresses from manufacture and use a multifilament yarn model. Subsequently the much more complex knitting patterns produced by the manufacturer of these sensors will then be able to be modelled

Whole-house retrofit: the role of new business models, finance mechanisms, and their implications for policy

The energy retrofit of homes is one of the most important and challenging issues for the decarbonisation of the global economy - having wider benefits for social welfare, economic development, energy security and public health. This thesis examines how new ‘business models’ and ‘finance mechanisms’, can promote a comprehensive ‘wholehouse’ approach to retrofit - involving integrated energy efficiency measures to the building fabric, low carbon heat measures such as heat pumps, and electricity microgeneration such as solar photovoltaics (PV). In addition, it shows how policymakers can support these new business models and finance mechanisms through innovation intermediaries. To deliver these aims, this research involved thirty-eight semi-structured interviews, combined with information from documentary sources and is split into four original articles, with a primary focus on the United Kingdom (UK). Article 1 shows how new business models can be a powerful tool for overcoming the challenges of whole-house retrofit. The article describes and compares five business model archetypes - ranging from the traditional, to highly innovative business models. These innovative models are characterised by: an emphasis on home improvement, aesthetics and comfort; industrialised processes and integrated supply chains; a holistic customer offering and single point of sale; long term energy-saving performance guarantees and integral project finance. Although the traditional model is suitable for the implementation of single energy-saving measures, it is argued business model innovation will be required to meet the UK’s ambitious climate change targets. Article 2 explores the challenges of financing this retrofit activity at scale. First, it develops a novel typology of finance mechanisms for residential retrofit - highlighting their key design features. The article then explores how these features influence the success of these mechanisms in different contexts. Three outcomes are shown to be especially important: a low cost of capital for retrofit finance; funding for non-energy measures such as general improvement works; and reduced complexity through a simple customer journey. Most importantly, the article outlines how finance alone is unlikely to be a driver of demand and should be viewed as a necessary enabler, of much broader retrofit strategy. Article 3 outlines how the adoption of ‘systemic innovations’, such as whole-house retrofit, may necessitate business model innovation. Through a case study of the innovative ‘Energiesprong’ retrofit business model it highlights the central role of an intermediary in this business model innovation. The article shows how Dutch policymakers sought to promote business model innovation through creation of this ‘market development team’: developing a novel framework combining the components of business models with the functions of intermediaries. The article further argues that policymakers might promote business model innovation through intermediaries in other sectors. Article 4 outlines how recent policy initiatives in the UK, have failed to address four interrelated challenges that constrain demand for retrofits: 1) uncertain benefits and quality; 2) complexity, disruption and timing; 3) up-front capital cost and split incentives and 4) information, engagement and trust. Overcoming these challenges, will require a comprehensive and wide-reaching policy strategy - involving ambitious targets and regulations, and the creation and support of new finance mechanisms, business models and dedicated intermediary actors to support policy implementation. This thesis therefore demonstrates how a focus on business models and financing provides an effective means of integrating the social and behavioural, organisational management and economic and financial challenges of retrofit. Thus, providing a coherent picture of how these problems fit together, as well as making a conceptual contribution. It further illustrates how policymakers can act to support business model innovation, through innovation intermediaries, and thus overcome many of the challenges facing the diffusion of whole-house retrofit

Overcoming the systemic challenges of retrofitting residential buildings in the United Kingdom. A Herculean task?

Policy initiatives in the UK, such as the Green Deal, have sought and failed to achieve the mass uptake of comprehensive residential retrofit. This chapter argues that previous policies have failed to address four interrelated challenges that constrain consumer demand. Thus, we focus on solutions to address these challenges from three key perspectives: business models, finance mechanisms and intermediaries. We first identify the systemic challenges for whole house retrofit and argue that a more comprehensive and wide-reaching policy strategy will be needed to overcome these challenges. This will require consistent and ambitious policy targets, and the creation or support of new finance mechanisms, business models and dedicated intermediary actors to support policy implementation

Have M&A delistings negatively impacted U.S. capital markets? Evidence from the effect on industry peer firms

We provide evidence of negative information spillovers associated with delistings from mergers and acquisitions (M&A delistings), a key factor in the long-term decline in the number of publicly listed firms in the U.S. Specifically, we show that M&A delistings are associated with a decrease in the quality of analysts’ information environment (increased absolute forecast errors and dispersion) for targets’ industry peer firms; these results are stronger when targets are larger, and for public targets than for private targets. Additional tests, including a falsification test using non-completed M&As, suggest that our results are robust to endogeneity concerns arising from industry-level shocks

Guides or gatekeepers? Incumbent-oriented transition intermediaries in a low-carbon era

Transitions intermediaries—agents who connect diverse groups of actors involved in transitions processes and their skills, resources and expectations—are becoming more prominent in research on low-carbon transitions. Most work, however, has focused on their ability to push innovations or emerging technologies forward, emphasising their involvement in disrupting incumbent regimes or firms. However, in focusing on new entrants, often at the grassroots level, such literature runs the risk of overlooking the potentially positive role that incumbent transition intermediaries—those oriented to work with or centrally consider the interests of dominant government, market or civic stakeholders—can play in meeting sustainable energy and transport goals. In this paper, we focus specifically on five different incumbent transition intermediaries—Smart Energy GB in the United Kingdom, Energiesprong in the Netherlands, SULPU in Finland, CERTU in France, and the Norwegian Electric Vehicle Association in Norway—and explain their efforts to meet socially desirable goals of accelerating innovation or decarbonizing energy or transport systems. We ask: Why were these intermediaries created, and what problems do they respond to? How do they function? What are their longer-term visions and strategies? What are their longer-term strategies and aspirations? In what ways do they reflect, reinforce, or otherwise shape incumbency? In answering these questions via a comparative case study approach, the paper aims to make contributions to the study of incumbency intermediation in the context of transitions, to identifying different types of incumbent intermediaries (market, governmental, civic), and to informing debates over energy and climate policy and politics

Collective renewable energy prosumers and the promises of the energy union: Taking stock

A key strategy in the European Union’s ambition to establish an ‘Energy Union’ that is not just clean, but also fair, consists of empowering citizens to actively interact with the energy market as self-consumers or prosumers. Although renewable energy sources (RES) prosumerism has been growing for at least a decade, two new EU directives are intended to legitimise and facilitate its expansion. However, little is known about the full range of prosumers against which to measure policy effectiveness. We carried out a documentary study and an online survey in nine EU countries to shed light on the demographics, use of technology, organisation, financing, and motivation as well as perceived hindering and facilitating factors for collective prosumers. We identified several internal and external obstacles to the successful mainstreaming of RES prosumerism, among them a mismatch of policies with the needs of different RES prosumer types, potential organisational weaknesses as well as slow progress in essential reforms such as decentralising energy infrastructures. Our baseline results offer recommendations for the transposition of EU directives into national legislations and suggest avenues for future research in the fields of social, governance, policy, technology, and business models

The Kinematic Algebra From the Self-Dual Sector

We identify a diffeomorphism Lie algebra in the self-dual sector of Yang-Mills theory, and show that it determines the kinematic numerators of tree-level MHV amplitudes in the full theory. These amplitudes can be computed off-shell from Feynman diagrams with only cubic vertices, which are dressed with the structure constants of both the Yang-Mills colour algebra and the diffeomorphism algebra. Therefore, the latter algebra is the dual of the colour algebra, in the sense suggested by the work of Bern, Carrasco and Johansson. We further study perturbative gravity, both in the self-dual and in the MHV sectors, finding that the kinematic numerators of the theory are the BCJ squares of the Yang-Mills numerators.Comment: 29 pages, 5 figures. v2: references added, published versio

Who applies for energy grants?

Most domestic energy retrofit policies in the UK are designed to incentivise economically rational consumers. Logically, this should mean that applicants to domestic energy incentives are those who can financially benefit the most from these subsidies. Here, we test this logic by asking the question 'what types of households apply for domestic energy incentives in the UK?'. To answer this question, we systematically assess the characteristics of households who apply for incentives and develop a GB neighbourhood level household typology bringing together data sets on domestic energy incentives and household geo-demographics. We discover that some types of households are much more likely to apply for incentives than others. In particular, we find that Asian origin, owner-occupier households of low income living in energy inefficient terraces apply for ECO incentives at a rate twelve times higher than expected. This phenomenon is even more pronounced when we look at applications by geographic area, with these households applying in very high numbers in the industrial north of England. Building on recent work on energy consumption and social relations, we argue that understanding the increased likelihood of these household types to apply for domestic energy incentives demands a relational perspective. These households share geo-demographic and dwelling characteristics, which suggests the spread of uptake of policy through the community through networks of social relations, as opposed to uptake purely on the basis of perceived cost-benefit. We conclude by offering insights for policy makers about the possibilities for mobilising social relations in the delivery of energy efficiency projects

Developing a relational approach to energy demand : a methodological and conceptual guide

In a recent review of research on the role of social relations in shaping energy demand, authors documented increasing interest in relational approaches to energy [1]. Relational approaches to energy conceive of human behaviour as produced and reproduced by social relations and interactions, placing relationships at the centre of inquiry, as well as understanding these relationships in the context of infrastructure and the built environment. In this paper, we build on a relational approach in new economic sociology, and on our research project about the social relations of energy retrofit, to offer a methodological and conceptual guide to those working on energy demand topics. We detail the ontological and epistemological starting points of our relational approach, and articulate how research can be designed to capture the role of social relations in shaping decision-making on energy, as well as to offer innovative insights for policy-makers and practitioners. We use our experience in a research project on energy retrofit as a case study, reflecting on the practical aspects of this research approach to provide suggestions for research design for those interested in doing similar work. This includes defining key concepts and the way they interact in a conceptual framework for a relational approach to energy. We also offer some conceptually driven research questions as a starting point for energy research projects. We finish by discussing the potential for further application of these ideas in research, policy and practice

‘The Rest is Silence’:Psychogeography, Soundscape and Nostalgia in Pat Collins’ Silence

Guy Debord defines the term psychogeography as 'the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organised or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals' (Debord 1955: 23). Similar to the belief of psychogeographers that the geography of an environment has a psychological effect on the human mind, proponents of acoustic ecology such as R. Murray Schafer hold that humans are affected by the sound of the environment in which they find themselves. Further to this, they examine the extent to which soundscapes can be shaped by human behaviour. Recently a body of Irish films has emerged that directly engages with the Irish soundscape and landscape on a psychogeographical level. Rather than using landscape as a physical space for the locus of action, these representations of the Irish landscape allow for an engagement with the aesthetic effects of the geographical landscape as a reflection of the psychological states of the protagonists. Bearing this in mind, this article examines how Silence (Collins 2012) arguably demonstrates the most overt and conscious incursion into this area to date. It specifically interrogates how the filmic representation of the psychogeography and soundscape of the Irish rural landscape can serve to express emotion, alienation and nostalgia, thus confronting both the Irish landscape and the weight of its associated history