Energy End-Use Technologies for the 21st Century. A Report of the World Energy Council

This report makes clear the opportunities and places technology development firmly centre stage in meeting and overcoming the challenges confronting the energy industry and policy makers. Energy End-Use Technologies for the 21st Century makes it crystal clear that technologies deployed in 20 to 50 years will be the result of policy and funding decisions taken now and that we cannot afford to duck these decisions if we are to meet the World Energy Council’s goals of energy availability, accessibility and acceptability

Characterization of 1D photonic crystal nanobeam cavities using curved microfiber

We investigate high-Q, small mode volume photonic crystal nanobeam cavities using a curved, tapered optical microfiber loop. The strength of the coupling between the cavity and the microfiber loop is shown to depend on the contact position on the nanobeam, angle between the nanobeam and the microfiber, and polarization of the light in the fiber. The results are compared to a resonant scattering measurement

Public art today. How public art sheds light on the future of the theory of commons

Public art and common goods, although belonging to apparently distant realms of inquiry, share a long history and, inevitably, an evolving meaning. This chapter investigates the evolution of the practice of public art with the objective to obtain a viable understanding of how the value of public art is produced today. With a focus on the future of public art, this chapter investigates three public art cases. The results of the qualitative analysis of these public art experiences are interpreted from an institutional economics perspective. The combination of public art and the theory of commons sheds light on what seems to be the most important attributes of common goods in the current debate, that is the social practices that constitute the act of making the commons.</p

A Compact Cold-Atom Interferometer with a High Data-Rate Grating Magneto-Optical Trap and a Photonic-Integrated-Circuit-Compatible Laser System

The extreme miniaturization of a cold-atom interferometer accelerometer requires the development of novel technologies and architectures for the interferometer subsystems. Here we describe several component technologies and a laser system architecture to enable a path to such miniaturization. We developed a custom, compact titanium vacuum package containing a microfabricated grating chip for a tetrahedral grating magneto-optical trap (GMOT) using a single cooling beam. In addition, we designed a multi-channel photonic-integrated-circuit-compatible laser system implemented with a single seed laser and single sideband modulators in a time-multiplexed manner, reducing the number of optical channels connected to the sensor head. In a compact sensor head containing the vacuum package, sub-Doppler cooling in the GMOT produces 15 uK temperatures, and the GMOT can operate at a 20 Hz data rate. We validated the atomic coherence with Ramsey interferometry using microwave spectroscopy, then demonstrated a light-pulse atom interferometer in a gravimeter configuration for a 10 Hz measurement data rate and T = 0 - 4.5 ms interrogation time, resulting in $\Delta$ g / g = 2.0e-6. This work represents a significant step towards deployable cold-atom inertial sensors under large amplitude motional dynamics.Comment: 21 pages, 10 figure

Planning and Designing Walkable Cities: A Smart Approach

Walking may be considered one of the most sustainable and democratic ways of travelling within a city, thus providing benefits not only to pedestrians but also to the urban environment. Besides, walking is also one of the means of transport most likely subjected to factors outside an individual\u2019s control, like social or physical abilities to walk and the presence of comfortable and safe street infrastructures and services. Therefore, improving urban conditions provided to pedestrians has positive impacts on walkability. At the same time technological solutions and innovations have the power to encourage and support people to walk by overcoming immaterial barriers due to a lack of information or boring travel and they give to decision makers the possibility to gain data to understand how and where people travel. Merging these two dimensions into a unique approach can drastically improve accessibility, attractiveness, safety, comfort and security of urban spaces. In this context, this paper aims to draw a more multifaceted context for walkability, where new technologies assume a key role for introducing new approaches to pedestrian paths planning and design and thus for enhancing this mode of transport. Indeed, by combining more traditional spatial-based and perceptual analysis of the urban environment with technological applications and social media exploitation there will be room to better support the decision on and to enhance satisfaction of walking as well as to easier plan and design more walkable cities

Green Urbanism and its Application to Singapore

Green urbanism has been applied to cities but not in Asia. Seven characteristics of green urbanism are outlined and then applied to Singapore. The Renewable City is not yet a concept for Singapore. The Carbon Neutral City is being developed for an island Palau Ubin and by some firms but not to significant sectors or parts of urban Singapore. The Distributed City is being developed around Singapore’s polycentric model but needs specific infrastructure plans similar to ones developed by Singapore for Tianjin Eco-City. The Biophillic City is being developed as a world first through its Skyrise Greenery initiative and urban landscaping. The Eco-Efficient City is also being demonstrated through Singapore closing the loop on their water and solid waste systems. The Place Based City is very evident in all its 22 sub centres. And the Sustainable Transport City is an Asian leader in integrated transport planning though there are signs of this becoming harder to achieve

Diffusion-Weighted MRI for Verification of Electroporation-Based Treatments

Clinical electroporation (EP) is a rapidly advancing treatment modality that uses electric pulses to introduce drugs or genes into, e.g., cancer cells. The indication of successful EP is an instant plasma membrane permeabilization in the treated tissue. A noninvasive means of monitoring such a tissue reaction represents a great clinical benefit since, in case of target miss, retreatment can be performed immediately. We propose diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DW-MRI) as a method to monitor EP tissue, using the concept of the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC). We hypothesize that the plasma membrane permeabilization induced by EP changes the ADC, suggesting that DW-MRI constitutes a noninvasive and quick means of EP verification. In this study we performed in vivo EP in rat brains, followed by DW-MRI using a clinical MRI scanner. We found a pulse amplitude–dependent increase in the ADC following EP, indicating that (1) DW-MRI is sensitive to the EP-induced changes and (2) the observed changes in ADC are indeed due to the applied electric field