Developing a practical framework of sustainability indicators relevant to all higher education institutions to enable meaningful international rankings

peer-reviewedHigher Education Institutions (HEIs) sustainability assessments are receiving significant attention in the academic literature, with ever more complex grading and ranking systems being developed. This paper aims to provide national policy makers with a simple set of indicators to facilitate measuring progress towards sustainability for the HEI sector, within the context of national sustainability data collection efforts. Candidate indicators were identified and assessed from the two most subscribed to HEI sustainability assessments, namely, the UIGreenMetric and STARS, to develop a sector specific indicator set. This resulted in a final set of 12 indicators, covering on-site energy, greenhouse gas emissions, solid waste, water, travel, education, research, and governance. The proposed indicator set was then compared to publicly available data for Irish HEIs, to identify gaps in data collection, which found that direct campus energy use and associated Scope 1 and 2 emission data alone were collected with sufficient rigour. The described indicator set has the potential to be applied to guiding national sustainability transitions globally and offers a template for accelerating sustainability data collection efforts for the HEI sector

fMRI biomarkers of social cognitive skills training in psychosis: Extrinsic and intrinsic functional connectivity.

Social cognitive skills training interventions for psychotic disorders have shown improvement in social cognitive performance tasks, but little was known about brain-based biomarkers linked to treatment effects. In this pilot study, we examined whether social cognitive skills training could modulate extrinsic and intrinsic functional connectivity in psychosis using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Twenty-six chronic outpatients with psychotic disorders were recruited from either a Social Cognitive Skills Training (SCST) or an activity- and time-matched control intervention. At baseline and the end of intervention (12 weeks), participants completed two social cognitive tasks: a Facial Affect Matching task and a Mental State Attribution Task, as well as resting-state fMRI (rs-fMRI). Extrinsic functional connectivity was assessed using psychophysiological interaction (PPI) with amygdala and temporo-parietal junction as a seed region for the Facial Affect Matching Task and the Mental State Attribution task, respectively. Intrinsic functional connectivity was assessed with independent component analysis on rs-fMRI, with a focus on the default mode network (DMN). During the Facial Affect Matching task, we observed stronger PPI connectivity in the SCST group after intervention (compared to baseline), but no treatment-related change in the Control group. Neither group showed treatment-related changes in PPI connectivity during the Mental State Attribution task. During rs-fMRI, we found treatment-related changes in the DMN in the SCST group, but not in Control group. This study found that social cognitive skills training modulated both extrinsic and intrinsic functional connectivity in individuals with psychotic disorders after a 12-week intervention. These findings suggest treatment-related changes in functional connectivity as a potential brain-based biomarker of social cognitive skills training

Catastrophe and the Public Service: A Case Study of the Government Response to the Destruction of the World Trade Center

The destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, resulted in a rapid response by government to evaluate the area and, in subsequent days, to bring the city back to a semblance of normalcy. This article provides a case study of government action in New York city during and after the World Trade Center catastrophe. What is most striking is the skill and intensity of government's response to the emergency and the hard work, dedication, and bravery of New York City's government officials. This article presents government and public service at its finest, under some of the most difficult conditions one can imagine

Improved small satellite access of the space network

This report contains the results of a study performed under the sponsorship of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) made as a grant to the Center for Space Telemetering and Telecommunication Systems at New Mexico State University. The purpose of this phase of the grant is to increase user access to the Space Network (SN) run by NASA for supplying space-to-ground communications for satellites and associated control centers. The identified need is to bring more users into the community of those accessing the SN, especially those in the small satellite class of users. The initial phase of the study concerned the potential for modifications to the standard transponder used in the SN. The results of that investigation are summarized in Section 4. As the hardware modifications were being investigated, a second option was developed, namely to consider changes to the operational mode for the small satellites. This operational concept was to use a single, fixed-pointing antenna in a spin-stabilized satellite and let the antenna pattern sweep past the Tracking and Data Relay Satellites (TDRS) in the SN. The question to be answered by this phase of the study was twofold: could enough contact time per day be made available using this simple operating mode and could the data rate be high enough to allow for sufficient data throughput to satisfy the user community using existing components. Section 2 outlines the methodology and simulation results to answer these questions. Section 3 contains a summary of an operational simulation of a simple satellite payload using these contact scenarios. The simulation is not all inclusive but shows how a payload simulation could be configured to utilize variable contact times. The answer to both of the questions desired to be answered is affirmative. By carefully choosing the correct system transmission power and antenna pattern, the system will allow support to the 50th percentile of expected systems. It is recommended that based on this initial study, further work be done to quantify the exact parameters for transmission through the space network and to optimize usage of the contact time to maximize throughput

A geospatial assessment of the rooftop decarbonisation potential of industrial and commercial zoned buildings: an example of Irish cities and regions

peer-reviewedThis paper describes a framework for estimating the effectiveness of photovoltaic and rainwater harvesting technology deployment on industrial and commercial zoned buildings to facilitate reducing national GHG emissions. Decarbonisation technologies pathways were investigated which may aid in meeting national decarbonisation targets, and their potential role at local administrative area scale evaluated. A finding arising from application of this method was that a small number of larger industrial and commercial buildings, representing only 4% of the sectors buildings, were found to account for 38% of its decarbonisation potential. Future carbon emission scenarios identified that electricity demand may be expected to increase for the industrial and commercial sector up to 2030, and that the technological potential for current photovoltaics systems have the potential to reduce GHG emissions by 4% more than currently planned Irish grid-scale decarbonisation trajectories. The method may be adopted at European scale, using local data on climate and building attributes, and is applicable at national, regional and local scales. The paper concludes with a review of technologies which may aid further decarbonisation studies, which include improved data availability for 3D building generation, and enabling technologies such as machine learning algorithms applied to satellite imagery.PUBLISHEDpeer-reviewe