The Impact of Upzoning on Housing Construction in Auckland

There is a growing debate about whether upzoning is an effective policy response to housing shortages and unaffordable housing. This paper provides empirical evidence to further inform debate by examining the various impacts of recently implemented zoning reforms on housing construction in Auckland, the largest metropolitan area in New Zealand. In 2016, the city upzoned approximately three quarters of its inner suburban land to facilitate construction of more intensive housing. We use a quasi-experimental approach to analyze the short-run impacts of the reform on construction, allowing for potential shifts in construction from non-upzoned to upzoned areas (negative spillovers) that would, if unaccounted for, lead to an overestimation of treatment effects. We find strong evidence that upzoning stimulated construction. Treatment effects remain statistically significant even under implausibly large spillovers that would necessitate a six-fold increase in the trend rate of construction in control areas under the counterfactual of no-upzoning. Our findings support the argument that upzoning can stimulate housing supply and suggest that further work to identify factors that mediate the efficacy of upzoning in achieving wider objectives of the policy would assist policymakers in the design of zoning reforms in the future

Data and the city – accessibility and openness. a cybersalon paper on open data

This paper showcases examples of bottom–up open data and smart city applications and identifies lessons for future such efforts. Examples include Changify, a neighbourhood-based platform for residents, businesses, and companies; Open Sensors, which provides APIs to help businesses, startups, and individuals develop applications for the Internet of Things; and Cybersalon’s Hackney Treasures. a location-based mobile app that uses Wikipedia entries geolocated in Hackney borough to map notable local residents. Other experiments with sensors and open data by Cybersalon members include Ilze Black and Nanda Khaorapapong's The Breather, a "breathing" balloon that uses high-end, sophisticated sensors to make air quality visible; and James Moulding's AirPublic, which measures pollution levels. Based on Cybersalon's experience to date, getting data to the people is difficult, circuitous, and slow, requiring an intricate process of leadership, public relations, and perseverance. Although there are myriad tools and initiatives, there is no one solution for the actual transfer of that data

Controlling high-frequency collective electron dynamics via single-particle complexity

We demonstrate, through experiment and theory, enhanced high-frequency current oscillations due to magnetically-induced conduction resonances in superlattices. Strong increase in the ac power originates from complex single-electron dynamics, characterized by abrupt resonant transitions between unbound and localized trajectories, which trigger and shape propagating charge domains. Our data demonstrate that external fields can tune the collective behavior of quantum particles by imprinting configurable patterns in the single-particle classical phase space.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Social identity mapping online.

This is the author accepted manuscript Social identities play an important role in many aspects of life, not least in those pertaining to health and well-being. Decades of research shows that these relationships are driven by a range of social identity processes, including identification with groups, social support received from groups, and multiple group memberships. However, to date, researchers have not had access to methods that simultaneously capture these social identity processes. To fill this void, this article introduces an online Social Identity Mapping (oSIM) tool designed to assess the multidimensional and connected nature of social identities. Four studies (total N = 721) featuring community, student, new parent, and retiree samples, test the reliability and validity of oSIM. Results indicate that the tool is easy to use, engaging, has good internal consistency as well as convergent and discriminant validity, and predicts relevant outcomes across a range of contexts. Furthermore, using meta-analytic findings, the tool is able to index a higher-order social identity construct, here introduced as a supergroup. This new concept provides holistic information about groups (reflecting an integrated index of several social identity processes) that are predictive of well-being outcomes, as well as outcomes related to successful adjustment to challenging life events. We discuss how the tool can be used to tackle key debates in the literature and contribute to theory by affording researchers the opportunity to capture the nuanced and contextual nature of social identity in action.Australian Research Counci

Infrared probe of the anomalous magnetotransport of highly oriented pyrolytic graphite in the extreme quantum limit

We present a systematic investigation of the magnetoreflectance of highly oriented pyrolytic graphite in magnetic field B up to 18 T . From these measurements, we report the determination of lifetimes tau associated with the lowest Landau levels in the quantum limit. We find a linear field dependence for inverse lifetime 1/tau(B) of the lowest Landau levels, which is consistent with the hypothesis of a three-dimensional (3D) to 1D crossover in an anisotropic 3D metal in the quantum limit. This enigmatic result uncovers the origin of the anomalous linear in-plane magnetoresistance observed both in bulk graphite and recently in mesoscopic graphite samples

Melt-quenched porous organic cage glasses

The discrete molecular nature of porous organic cages (POCs) has allowed us to direct the formation of crystalline materials by crystal engineering. It has also been possible to create porous amorphous solids by deliberately disrupting the crystalline packing, either with chemical modification or by processing. More recently, organic cages were used to form isotropic porous liquids. However, the connection between solid and liquid states of POCs, and the glass state, are almost completely unexplored. Here, we investigate the melting and glass-forming behaviour of a range of organic cages, including both shapepersistent POCs formed by imine condensation, and reduced and synthetically post-modified amine POCs that are more flexible and lack shape-persistence. The organic cages exhibited melting and quenching of the resultant liquids provides molecular glasses. One of these molecular glasses exhibited improved gas uptake for both CO2 and CH4 compared to the starting amorphous cage. In addition, foaming of the liquid in one case resulted in a more stable and less soluble glass, which demonstrates the potential for an alternative approach to forming materials such as membranes without solution processing

Embedding sustainability education into hospitality, tourism and events management curricula – a preliminary best practice model

With over seventy percent of millennials preferring to spend disposable income on experiences rather than consumer goods, organizations operating in the tourism, hospitality, and events sectors are predicted to see increasing demand. Despite being recognized as a major contributor to economic activity, these sectors have been criticized for being a root cause of environmental degradation, acculturation, economic leakage, and migration. The recent collapse of international travel firms with far-reaching consequences for employees, suppliers, and destinations has highlighted the vulnerability of organizations to volatility in the business environment and calls for a reassessment of business and leadership models. Since the adoption of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals in 2015, sustainability initiatives are becoming more embedded into corporate strategies with an increasing focus on the triple bottom line. Following the creation of the Global Reporting Initiative Standards and sector-specific standards, there is a growing expectation that organizations demonstrate accountability for their sustainability initiatives. In Western societies, this reflects a shift away from the liberalist notion of the “Theory of the Firm” towards the sustainability paradigm. The purpose of this exploratory paper is to propose a preliminary framework for embedding innovative sustainability education in undergraduate degree programs. The paper first reviews UK-based guidelines for sustainability education at the university level. It then proposes a framework for the development of a corresponding curriculum audit tool that assesses how comprehensively sustainability education is embedded into undergraduate curricula. The University of Gloucestershire’s degree programs in International Hospitality and Tourism Management and Event Management are used as case studies to demonstrate how an audit tool design based on relevant principles can be used in practice for assessing and enhancing sustainability education. The paper recommends the further development of the tool into a best practice model integrating graduate attributes, key learning outcomes and skills, and an appropriate learning and teaching infrastructure. Transferability across subjects and transnationally is identified as an area for further research

Does landscape-scale conservation management enhance the provision of ecosystem services?

Biodiversity conservation approaches are increasingly being implemented at the landscape-scale to support the maintenance of metapopulations and metacommunities. However, the impact of such interventions on the provision of ecosystem services is less well defined. Here we examine the potential impacts of landscape-scale conservation initiatives on ecosystem services, through analysis of five case study areas in England and Wales. The provision of multiple ecosystem services was projected according to current management plans and compared with a baseline scenario. Multicriteria analysis indicated that in most cases landscape-scale approaches lead to an overall increase in service provision. Consistent increases were projected in carbon storage, recreation and aesthetic value, as well as biodiversity value. However, most study areas provided evidence of trade-offs, particularly between provisioning services and other types of service. Results differed markedly between study areas, highlighting the importance of local context. These results suggest that landscape-scale conservation approaches are likely to be effective in increasing ecosystem service provision, but also indicate that associated costs can be significant, particularly in lowland areas

Modular Type III Porous Liquids Based on Porous Organic Cage Microparticles

The dispersion of particulate porous solids in size-excluded liquids has emerged as a method to create Type III porous liquids, mostly using insoluble microporous materials such as metal–organic frameworks and zeolites. Here, the first examples of Type III porous liquids based on porous organic cages (POCs) are presented. By exploiting the solution processability of the POCs, racemic and quasiracemic cage microparticles are formed by chiral recognition. Dispersion of these porous microparticles in a range of size-excluded liquids, including oils and ionic liquids, forms stable POC-based Type III porous liquids. The flexible pairing between the solid POC particles and a carrier liquid allows the formation of a range of compositions, pore sizes, and other physicochemical properties to suit different applications and operating conditions. For example, it is shown that porous liquids with relatively low viscosities or high thermal stability can be produced. A 12.5 wt% Type III porous liquid comprising racemic POC microparticles and an ionic liquid, [BPy][NTf2], shows a CO2 working capacity (104.30 µmol gL−1) that is significantly higher than the neat ionic liquid (37.27 µmol gL−1) between 25 and 100 °C. This liquid is colloidally stable and can be recycled at least ten times without loss of CO2 capacity

Effects of crystal size on methanol to hydrocarbon conversion over single crystals of ZSM-5 studied by synchrotron infrared microspectroscopy

IBM and PAW would like to thank the EPSRC and CRITICAT Centre for Doctoral Training for Financial Support [PhD studentship to IBM, and supplementary equipment grant EP/L016419/1]. The UK Catalysis Hub is thanked for resources and support provided via membership of the UK Catalysis Hub Consortium and funded by EPSRC (grants EP/I038748/1, EP/I019693/1, EP/K014706/1, EP/K014668/1, EP/K014854/1, EP/K014714/1 and EP/M013219/1). We thank the Diamond Light Source for provision of beam time and support facilities at the MIRIAM beamline B22 (Experiments SM13725-1, SM16257-1, SM18680-1, SM20906-1). IBM and PAW thank EPSRC and CRTICAT Centre for Doctoral Training for a PhD Studentship (grant EP/IO17008/1) and Supplementary Equipment Grant (EP/L016419/1). We thank Pit Losch and Hans J. Bongard, Max-Planck-Institut fur Kohlenforschung for cross-sectional SEM-EDX analysis, Daniel M. Dawson, University of St Andrews, for solid state NMR, and Juan M.Gonzalez-Carballo, University of St Andrews, for assistance with ammonia TPD. The research data supporting this publication can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.17630/306bd3c3-014b-466f-9538-b107628c847d.Peer reviewedPostprin