Liquid marble-derived solid-liquid hybrid superparticles for CO2 capture.

The design of effective CO2 capture materials is an ongoing challenge. Here we report a concept to overcome current limitations associated with both liquid and solid CO2 capture materials by exploiting a solid-liquid hybrid superparticle (SLHSP). The fabrication of SLHSP involves assembly of hydrophobic silica nanoparticles on the liquid marble surface, and co-assembly of hydrophilic silica nanoparticles and tetraethylenepentamine within the interior of the liquid marble. The strong interfacial adsorption force and the strong interactions between amine and silica are identified to be key elements for high robustness. The developed SLHSPs exhibit excellent CO2 sorption capacity, high sorption rate, long-term stability and reduced amine loss in industrially preferred fixed bed setups. The outstanding performances are attributed to the unique structure which hierarchically organizes the liquid and solid at microscales

Urban and Peri-urban Agroforestry as Multifunctional Land Use

In this era of global changes, rapid urbanization rates, climate change impacts and growing socio-environmental concerns are negatively impacting on various aspects of urban life, such as human health and well-being, urban economy stability, biodiversity levels, land productivity and natural resources availability. In this context, cities - having become the main centres of consumption and production worldwide - need to move towards more sustainable and resilient urban development models, considering novel approaches aimed at integrating grey and green infrastructure, economic growth and environmental concerns, knowledge diffusion and poverty and hunger eradication. In this regard, the implementation of urban and peri-urban agroforestry (UPAF) systems - associated with the integration of urban food systems into urban planning - can greatly support the provision of ecosystem services to urban dwellers, thus contributing to the improvement of their livelihood through increased food and nutrition security, energy and fresh water availability, regulation of local climate, carbon sequestration, maintenance of genetic diversity, recreation opportunities and health improvement. In this sense, UPAF is emerging as a new urban practice addressed to promote sustainable land use as well as the integration between urban and rural development. However, its implementation in urban contexts presents several key challenges, such as land tenure conflicts, lack of integration with urban policies and plans and technical knowledge, as well as necessity of innovative governance models. In this context, the aim of this chapter is to outline, through a review of the relevant literature and case studies from both developed and developing countries, the benefits deriving from the implementation of UPAF systems and highlight how these practices can support the improvement of urban sustainability and resilience, particularly in terms of enhancement of provisioning, cultural, regulating and supporting ecosystem services

Sources of avoidance motivation: Valence effects from physical effort and mental rotation

When reaching goals, organisms must simultaneously meet the overarching goal of conserving energy. According to the law of least effort, organisms will select the means associated with the least effort. The mechanisms underlying this bias remain unknown. One hypothesis is that organisms come to avoid situations associated with unnecessary effort by generating a negative valence toward the stimuli associated with such situations. Accordingly, merely using a dysfunctional, ‘slow’ computer mouse causes participants to dislike ambient neutral images (Study 1). In Study 2, nonsense shapes were liked less when associated with effortful processing (135° of mental rotation) versus easier processing (45° of rotation). Complementing ‘fluency’ effects found in perceptuo-semantic research, valence emerged from action-related processing in a principled fashion. The findings imply that negative valence associations may underlie avoidance motivations, and have practical implications for educational/workplace contexts in which effort and positive affect are conducive to success

The rule of law as the measure of political legitimacy in the Greek city states

This paper explores how a conception of the rule of law (embodied in a variety of legal and political institutions) came to affirm itself in the world of the ancient Greek city states. It argues that such a conception, formulated in opposition to the arbitrary rule of man, was to a large extent consistent with modern ideas of the rule of law as a constraint to political power, and to their Fullerian requirements of formal legality, as well as to requirements of due process. Section 2 analyses how this ideal was formulated in the Archaic period, and how it became a key feature of Greek identity. Section 3 argues that in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE it came to be used as the measure of the legitimacy of Greek political systems: democracy and oligarchy, as they engaged in an ideological battle, were judged as legitimate (and desirable) or illegitimate (and undesirable) on the basis of their conformity with a shared ideal of the rule of law. Then as now, to quote Tamanaha, ‘the rule of law’ was ‘an accepted measure worldwide of government legitimacy’

Equity in allocating carbon dioxide removal quotas

The first Nationally Determined Contributions to the Paris Agreement include none mention of the carbon dioxide removal (CDR) necessary to reach the Paris targets, leaving open the question of how and by whom CDR will be delivered. Drawing on existing equity frameworks, we allocate CDR quotas globally according to Responsibility, Capability and Equality principles. These quotas are then assessed in the European Union context by accounting for domestic national capacity of a portfolio of CDR options including bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, reforestation and direct air capture. We find that quotas vary greatly across countries and principles, from 33 to 325 GtCO2 allocated to the European Union, and, that due to biophysical limits, only a handful of countries could meet them acting individually. Our results call for strengthening cross-border cooperation, while highlighting the need to deploy CDR options with urgency to mitigate the risk of failing to meet the global climate targets. Full-text access via the Springer Nature Content Sharing Initiative: https://rdcu.be/b4I27The authors acknowledge the financial support from NERC - Natural Environment Research Council (PSD202

CHARACTERIZATION OF AZ PN114 RESIST FOR SOFT-X-RAY PROJECTION LITHOGRAPHY

Using 14-nm wavelength illumination, we have imaged 0.1-mum-wide lines and spaces in single-layer thin films of the highly sensitive, negative, chemically amplified resist AZ PN114 by using both a Schwarzschild 20 x camera and an Offner ring field 1x optical system. For soft-x-ray projection lithography the approximate 0.2-mum absorption length in resists at 14-nm wavelength necessitates a multilayer resist system. To explore further the requirements of the imaging layer of such a system, we have transferred patterns, exposed by a high-resolution electron beam in a 60-nm-thick layer of AZ PN114, into the underlying layers of a trilevel structure. Significant pattern edge noise and resist granularity were found. It remains to be determined whether the observed noise is dominated by statistical fluctuations in dose or by resist chemistry. We also investigated pinhole densities in these films and found them to increase from 0.2 cm-2 for 380-mm-thick films to 15 cm-2 for 50-nm-thick films