Roadmaps to Utopia: Tales of the Smart City

Notions of the Smart City are pervasive in urban development discourses. Various frameworks for the development of smart cities, often conceptualized as roadmaps, make a number of implicit claims about how smart city projects proceed but the legitimacy of those claims is unclear. This paper begins to address this gap in knowledge. We explore the development of a smart transport application, MotionMap, in the context of a £16M smart city programme taking place in Milton Keynes, UK. We examine how the idealized smart city narrative was locally inflected, and discuss the differences between the narrative and the processes and outcomes observed in Milton Keynes. The research shows that the vision of data-driven efficiency outlined in the roadmaps is not universally compelling, and that different approaches to the sensing and optimization of urban flows have potential for empowering or disempowering different actors. Roadmaps tend to emphasize the importance of delivering quick practical results. However, the benefits observed in Milton Keynes did not come from quick technical fixes but from a smart city narrative that reinforced existing city branding, mobilizing a growing network of actors towards the development of a smart region. Further research is needed to investigate this and other smart city developments, the significance of different smart city narratives, and how power relationships are reinforced and constructed through them

Early arm swelling after breast surgery: changes on both sides

Lymphedema is a common complication of treatment for breast cancer. However, little information is available describing changes in upper limb volumes in the early stages following surgery.Retrospective audit.Women who underwent unilateral mastectomy or axillary node removal for breast cancer at the Princess Alexandra Hospital, Brisbane, Australia.Circumferential measurements taken at 10 cm intervals from the ulnar styloid on each arm were converted to segmental volumes using the frustum approach.Pre-surgery baseline measures were taken by a physiotherapist at Preadmission Clinic at the Princess Alexandra Hospital. Follow-up measures were taken 6 weeks after surgery by Domiciliary Allied Health Acute Care and Rehabilitation Service physiotherapists in patients' homes.Limb segment volumes increased in the proximal upper limb segments at follow-up. The proportion of patients with a 10% or greater increase in volume in one or more segments of their upper limb were similar for ipsilateral (35%) and contralateral (32%) sides (to side of surgery), respectively. No significant interaction between time and arm (ipsilateral versus contralateral) was identified.These findings demonstrate that limb segment volume changes affect a greater proportion of patients during the first 6 weeks following surgery than previously recorded. They also indicate that flow of lymph from the side of surgery to the contralateral side may disperse lymph between sides during this early post-operative period. This has implications for how swelling is measured during this period and strategies to prevent onset of lymphedema

Electrocatalysis for the Hydrogen Economy

This chapter deals with the concept of “hydrogen economy”, which was introduced by John O.M’ Bockris in 1972. We summarize the fundamental principles and the progress for the reactions relevant to the hydrogen economy, namely the hydrogen and oxygen evolution for water electrolyzers, and the hydrogen oxidation and oxygen reduction for fuel cells. The activity of each reaction can be correlated to a single descriptor, i.e. the adsorption energy of a key reaction intermediate, following a volcano-type relationship. Highly active materials can be prepared with the aid of modern computational and experimental tools. Nevertheless, to develop catalysts that are substantially more active and reach the performance of ideal catalysts, the focus must be placed on materials that can break the energetic scaling relations between intermediates. The systems of choice are acidic water electrolyzers or fuel cells, using noble metals for the catalytic material, despite the great progress made in the field of alkaline systems. However, to realize the concept of hydrogen economy on a large scale, the electrode material for either reaction must combine activity, stability and abundance

Interruption of antiretroviral therapy is associated with increased plasma cystatin C.

Collaboratore della suddetta ricerca in quanto membro del INSIGHT SMART Study Grou