Framing safety of women in public transport: A media discourse analysis of sexual harassment cases in Bangladesh

This paper analyzes the role of print media in framing incidences of sexual harassment in public transport; particularly in the context of Bangladesh, where gender-based violence is highly prevalent in the public sphere. This article uses Douglas’ cultural theory to reflect on media practices and its institutional power to reframe the social problem through risk and blame attribution. We conducted a discourse analysis of 71 news articles extracted from four of the widely circulated and influential newspapers of Bangladesh. Our findings reveal that the hegemonic discourse of gender-based violence in public transport is systemic and/or primarily reliant on legal recourse. By contrast, discourses presenting sexual harassment as symptomatic of broader gender inequality is less frequent. Moreover, these media platforms belong to an assemblage of patriarchal social-power holders that collaborate with established law and order to facilitate a blame game, thereby relieving the same stakeholders of ownership and accountability. Given the power of news media in constructing meta-narratives of safety (and nudging policymakers), journalists must tread responsibly on issues of blame, women’s safety, and their rights to the city

Affects and assemblages of (un)safety among female bus commuters in Dhaka

By examining the lived experiences of 30 female bus commuters in Dhaka using in-depth qualitative approaches, this paper argues for an enhanced understanding of socio-cognitive undercurrents of gendered mobilities. By privileging a feminist-affective lens, and tracing the emotionally and politically charged everyday negotiations of space, power struggles, (dis) comfort, and encounters between gendered bodies, the paper contends that women’s agency to act and respond to harassment in public transport is contingent on multi-scalar assemblages comprising socio-technical infrastructures, lifestyles, cultural histories, personal dispositions and situated knowledge. Moreover, by applying assemblage thinking and affect theories in transport spaces, the study links discussions on gender, violence and mobility beyond the common economic tropes as is common in transport studies of the Global South

Devising gender-responsive transport policies in South Asia: Gender & Development

Over time, the transport sector has grown more cognisant of gender differences in planning and policy. Yet, extant literature on transport shows that challenges, such as sexual harassment of women still prevail. The value of this study is its contribution towards gender-responsive transport policies with a focus on women by highlighting (1) the spectrum of barriers that prevent women’s mobility across origin to destination journeys; and (2) construction of safety by using interventions and tools available to them, namely technology, women-only solutions, and infrastructural design. The findings are based on data from in-depth interviews with women participants in two Indian cities–Delhi and Kolkata. Drawing from our research, key policy suggestions include framing interventions in a rights-based manner, institutionalising gender-disaggregated data to inform interventions, and sensitising institutions such as the law enforcement on gender equity and women’s rights to the city. This research would be especially beneficial for regions in and beyond South Asia sharing similar contexts

Verification of the modified degradation mode identification technique by employing electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and differential voltage analysis

For retired automotive lithium-ion batteries, state of health (SoH) is currently utilised to grade them for a second-life application. However, researchers previously challenged this and expressed that, in addition to SoH, the actual degradation mechanism, also known as degradation mode (DM), should be considered for grading, for efficient second-life operation. To date, there is little evidence to support this. A validated DM detection technique for cell/module grading does not exist. A modified DM detection technique by tracking and indexing the incremental capacity (IC) curves was previously proposed by the authors; nevertheless, it was difficult to validate. Researchers previously proposed DM identification using Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) and Differential Voltage (DV) analysis. With a direct comparison of the techniques made exploiting IC, DV, and EIS, a correlation can be made, which is presented in this article. The correlation suggests that cells identified as having the same (or different) DM by the proposed technique also identified as having the same (or different) DM growth by EIS technique proposed by other researchers. Likewise, DV analysis suggests that the DV peak’s standard deviation of similar DM cells is smaller than that of the different DM cells

Modification of degradation mechanism identification technique for cell grading

The service life of the retired automotive lithium-ion battery (LIB) can be extended through reusing without major changes and reusing through remanufacturing. Reusing through remanufacturing at the module level likely outweigh remanufacturing at the cell level and reusing without major changes. To remanufacture a battery pack, cells/modules are required to be graded and cells/modules in a remanufactured pack needs to be at identical state. The current approach utilises cell/module capacity i.e. State of Health (SoH), to grade the cells/modules at the end of first life. However, the only capacity may not be enough to match the cells/modules; how the cells/modules have been degraded (degradation mechanism, DM) may play a vital role in defining their performance in second life. However, the existing DM detection techniques are not designed to grade the cells/modules at the end of the first life. In this paper, a modified DM detection process is proposed. Here, the proposed modified DM detection process is verified by applying them to the degradation experimental results. Employing the proposed modified DM detection method, cells at same SoH at the end of first life can be graded based on their DM

Assessing the impact of first-life lithium-ion battery degradation on second-life performance

The driving and charging behaviours of Electric Vehicle (EV) users exhibit considerable variation, which substantially impacts the battery degradation rate and its root causes. EV battery packs undergo second-life application after first-life retirement, with SoH measurements taken before redeployment. However, the impact of the root cause of degradation on second-life performance remains unknown. Hence, the question remains whether it is necessary to have more than a simple measure of state of health (SoH) before redeployment. This article presents experimental data to investigate this. As part of the experiment, a group of cells at around 80% SoH, representing retired EV batteries, were cycled using a representative second-life duty cycle. Cells with a similar root cause of degradation in the first life (100–80% SoH) exhibited the same degradation rate in second life after being cycled with the same duty cycle during the second life. When the root cause of degradation in the first life is different, the degradation rate in the second life may not be the same. These findings suggest that the root cause of a cell’s first-life degradation impacts how it degrades in its second life. Postmortem analysis (photographic and SEM images) reveals the similar physical condition of negative electrodes which have similar degradation rates in their second life cycle. This demonstrates that cells with a similar first life SoH and root cause of degradation indeed experience a similar life during their second life. The experimental results, along with the subsequent postmortem analysis, suggest that relying solely on SoH assessment is insufficient. It is crucial to take into account the root causes of cell degradation before redeployment

Antioxidant properties of resveratrol and piceid on lipid peroxidation in micelles and monolamellar liposomes.

The antioxidant activities of trans-resveratrol (trans-3,5,4′-trihydroxystilbene) and trans-piceid (trans-5,4′- dihydroxystilbene-3-O-β-D-glucopyranoside), its more widespread glycosilate derivative, have been compared measuring their inhibitory action on peroxidation of linoleic acid (LA) and the radical scavenging ability towards different free radicals (such as DPPH) and radical initiators. It has been found that the two stilbenes have similar antioxidant capacity, while the comparison with BHT (2,6-di-tert-butyl-4-methylphenol) and α-tocopherol (vitamin E, vit. E), taken as reference, points out a slower but prolonged protective action against lipid peroxidation. Furthermore, piceid appears more efficacious than resveratrol as a consequence of the reaction of the latter with its radical form. The DSC profiles of phosphatidylcholine liposomes of various chain lengths, and EPR measurements of spin labelled liposomes demonstrated that the susceptible hydroxyl group of these compounds are located in the\ud lipid region of the bilayer close to the double bonds of polyunsatured fatty acids, making these stilbenes particularly suitable for the prevention and control of the lipid peroxidation of the membranes