Transitioning urban water systems

Water managers acknowledge on a global scale that current practices are no longer sustainable and have an adverse impact on ecology (disruptions to the water cycle and habitats), public health (water qualities, sanitation services) and the economy (flooding, drought and overuse of resources). The idea of applying transitioning approaches stems from growing recognition that changes in water management are urgently needed. The SWITCH transitioning approach was developed by consolidating the project’s existing stakeholder engagement approach with ideas on transition knowledge, an emerging new field of science

CAPITAL-SKILL COMPLEMENTARITY? EVIDENCE FROM A PANEL OF COUNTRIES

Since Griliches (1969), researchers have been intrigued by the idea that physical capital and skilled labor are relatively more complementary than physical capital and unskilled labor. This capital-skill complementarity hypothesis has received renewed attention recently, as researchers have suggested that this phenomenon might account for rising wage inequality between skilled and unskilled workers in several developed countries. In this paper we consider the cross-country evidence for capital--skill complementarity using a time-series, cross-section panel of 73 developed and less developed countries over a 25 year period. In particular, we focus on three empirical issues. First, what is the best specification of the aggregate production technology to address the capital-skill complementarity hypothesis. Second, how should we measure skilled labor? Finally, is there any cross-country evidence in support of the capital-skill complementarity hypothesis? Our main finding is that we are unable to reject the null hypothesis of no capital-skill complementarity using our panel data set.Input Complementarities, Production Function Estimation

A quantitative content analysis of UK newsprint coverage of proposed legislation to prohibit smoking in private vehicles carrying children

This project was funded by Cancer Research UK (MC_U130085862) and the Scottish School of Public Health Research. Cancer Research UK and the Scottish School of Public Health Research were not involved in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data, writing of the manuscript or the decision to submit the manuscript for publication. Shona Hilton, Karen Wood and Chris Patterson were funded by the UK Medical Research Council as part of the Understandings and Uses of Public Health Research programme (MC_UU_12017/6) at the MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow. Thanks to Josh Bain and Alan Pollock for coding assistance.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

New figures should prompt cautious optimism about shale gas

Many in the UK are optimistic about the prospects of exploiting shale gas, reserves of which the latest figures suggest are larger than previously thought. Samuela Bassi and Chris Duffy caution about being over-enthusiastic about the impact fracking will have on energy prices and jobs as only 4 per cent may be technically recoverable

Editorial: On the technology of liveness

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System responsiveness and the European Union Emissions Trading System

This paper argues in favour of a reform of the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) that makes the system more responsive to unexpected price shocks. The paper proposed rules based mechanism for withdrawing and injecting allowances from the market based on price trends. Key points: Following the 2008 economic recession, the price of European Union Allowances (EUAs) unsurprisingly dropped, following a fall in demand. However the low price has persisted despite mild economic growth within Europe since the beginning of the crisis. Policy regulators are currently unable to respond to unforeseen changes in economic circumstances, technology advancement and complementary policies that generate downward price pressure. The decision by the European Commission to temporarily withdraw 900 million EUAs from the market will have little impact on the long term market price expectation. Other one-off measures would also leave the system vulnerable, addressing the symptoms but not the cause of structural weakness in the system. What is needed is a responsiveness mechanism that enables the European Commission to respond to unanticipated shocks. This ‘rules-based reserve management mechanism’ would have a double trigger system in place. A price trend ‘trigger’ to determine when intervention would be needed, and a volume ‘trigger’, that would determine the amount of EUAs to inject or withdraw. This would encourage self-adjusting behaviour from market participants, anticipating an intervention by looking at the price trend over the specified period, thus acting in their own interest to buy, sell or banking their EUAs in advance of an intervention. This behaviour would help regulate the supply-demand balance of the market which would effectively limit the need for an intervention to exceptional circumstances

A systematic review of protocol studies on conceptual design cognition: design as search and exploration

This paper reports findings from the first systematic review of protocol studies focusing specifically on conceptual design cognition, aiming to answer the following research question: What is our current understanding of the cognitive processes involved in conceptual design tasks carried out by individual designers? We reviewed 47 studies on architectural design, engineering design and product design engineering. This paper reports 24 cognitive processes investigated in a subset of 33 studies aligning with two viewpoints on the nature of designing: (V1) design as search (10 processes, 41.7%); and (V2) design as exploration (14 processes, 58.3%). Studies on search focused on solution search and problem structuring, involving: long-term memory retrieval; working memory; operators and reasoning processes. Studies on exploration investigated: co-evolutionary design; visual reasoning; cognitive actions; and unexpected discovery and situated requirements invention. Overall, considerable conceptual and terminological differences were observed among the studies. Nonetheless, a common focus on memory, semantic, associative, visual perceptual and mental imagery processes was observed to an extent. We suggest three challenges for future research to advance the field: (i) developing general models/theories; (ii) testing protocol study findings using objective methods conducive to larger samples and (iii) developing a shared ontology of cognitive processes in design

The Bi-axial Behaviour of Shear Connectors in Composite Slabs and Beams

The use of composite beams which utilise steel beams together with a composite steel sheet/concrete floor slab is well developed. Many forms of steel profile are used and the form of attachment to the steel beam is generally by welded shear studs or shot-fired shear connectors. The design procedures for these beams require a knowledge of the shear capacity of the connectors which may be influenced by the type of profile being used for the beam. This shear capacity is often deduced from information obtained from standard push-off tests which mayor may not include in the test set-up the actual profile type to be used. There is variation between countries in the test procedures used for push-out tests; parametric studies on the sample size and loading procedures have not produced a definitive model. The proposed Eurocode 4 version has a test set up for the push-off tests which is broadly similar to past types but introduces an element of cyclic loading. The development of composite floors has seen improvements in profile design leading to more efficient shear transfer. Work has also been carried out to increase the load capacity for these slabs by the use of end anchorages. These anchorages which prevent the slip of the profile steel sheet relative to the concrete are generally shear connectors attached to the supporting beams through the profiled steel sheet. In the majority of practical design cases the connectors used for the composite beam will, designed for or not, be capable of providing some force at right angles to the beam axis in the direction in which the slab is spanning. In an early reference to this behaviour design account need only be taken if the connector was designed for such two-way action. It, therefore, appeared necessary to consider how this two-way or biaxial behaviour affected the capacity of the shear connector when designed to act either in one or both directions. Certain codes referred to the capacity in both directions as a function of the traditional push-off value but this has been demonstrated as not being the case

VibCo Live Bottom Bin Internal Vibratory Fixture

Early in the Fall semester, JBE Industries presented one of their current challenges inside their facility. Their indoor cultivation facility has an issue with the control and mitigation of pests and diseases. The use of pesticides on medicinal plants is heavily regulated because these plants are mainly ingested through combustion, sublimation, and inhalation (smoking). Within JBE’s facility, they have implemented a CO2 fumigation system in the flower room to optimize pest mitigation and plant growth. Fumigation is classified as pumping gas (in this case CO2) into an enclosed volume at high concentrations for an extended period of time. JBE has challenged the engineering team to design a test box that will be able to hold test plants (clones) and fumigate said plants at different concentrations for specific set amounts of time. The purpose for this is to prove the hypothesis that the CO2 fumigation will be successful in fumigating the pests while not damaging the plant. Proving this on a small scale before the installation of a fumigation system at the JBE facility will decrease the risk of the hypothesis not being correct and therefore wasting excess money on the large scale fumigation system. In order to design the small scale fumigation device, the engineering team has utilized engineering techniques and analysis to determine a design that fulfills all the specifications required by JBE and even incorporates parameters that were not originally considered. A few things that must be taken into control when constructing this box other than CO2 concentration level include humidity, temperature, and pressure. The engineering team was successful in achieving the fumigation parameters JBE set forth, multiple CO2 tests took place during the spring semester in which the team was successful in reaching and maintaining the level of CO2 JBE desired. More detailed testing notes and matrices can be found under the testing section of this report. The engineering team is planning on doing a live fumigation test with plants and pests to prove the fumigation hypothesis. Within this report, the engineering teams research, analysis, design, and proof of concept (POC) are presented in a concise manner that encompasses all the work completed throughout the Fall 2018 and Spring 2019 semesters