Spectrum, Volume 19, Number 6

Highlights include: Mock accident hosted to rise awareness of drunk driving -- Urban Latino magazine founder visits SHU -- Beautification day scheduled to clean up ad unify SHU -- Computer issues causing backup in the printing lab -- All Saint\u27s day and Hallow\u27s Eve have intricate histories -- Men\u27s soccer falls 1-7 to Fairleigh Dickinson -- Woman\u27s rugby take second place title in championship -- Pioneers trample Iona 49-

Applying the neuroscience of creativity to creativity training

This article investigates how neuroscience in general, and neuroscience of creativity in particular, can be used in teaching "applied creativity" and the usefulness of this approach to creativity training. The article is based on empirical data and our experiences from the Applied NeuroCreativity (ANC) program, taught at business schools in Denmark and Canada. In line with previous studies of successful creativity training programs the ANC participants are first introduced to cognitive concepts of creativity, before applying these concepts to a relevant real world creative problem. The novelty in the ANC program is that the conceptualization of creativity is built on neuroscience, and a crucial aspect of the course is giving the students a thorough understanding of the neuroscience of creativity. Previous studies have reported that the conceptualization of creativity used in such training is of major importance for the success of the training, and we believe that the neuroscience of creativity offers a novel conceptualization for creativity training. Here we present pre/post-training tests showing that ANC students gained more fluency in divergent thinking (a traditional measure of trait creativity) than those in highly similar courses without the neuroscience component, suggesting that principles from neuroscience can contribute effectively to creativity training and produce measurable results on creativity tests. The evidence presented indicates that the inclusion of neuroscience principles in a creativity course can in 8 weeks increase divergent thinking skills with an individual relative average of 28.5%

Pathway to achieve negative CO2 emissions - combining biomass with CCS

The urgency to stabilize the global temperature rise at 1.5°C as highlighted in Paris COP21 and the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report calls for solutions that can remove CO2 from the atmosphere. The ability of carbon negative processes to offset historic emissions and emissions across different sectors is also highlighted in recent scenarios by IEA and WEC. Achieving negative CO2 emissions by removing CO2 from the atmosphere is possible by applying carbon capture in processes utilizing biomass (bio-CCS). Biomass has the capability of withdrawing and storing atmospheric CO2. As a result, CO2 released during biomass thermo-chemical conversion can be captured and stored permanently underground, thus depriving the atmosphere of CO2. The objective of this paper is to assess different deployment opportunities of bio-CCS from GHG emissions and plant economy point of view; to evaluate what is the best way to use constrained biomass resources by assessing the effects that raw materials types, different processes and end products have on carbon stocks and on the overall GHG mitigation from the global point of view. It also describes an implementation pathway incorporating bio-CCU processes as an intermediate step towards low carbon societies in 2050. Bio-CCU applications, incorporating power-to-gas (P2G) and RES boosted hybrid processes as intermediate steps for fully carbon neutral energy supply are seen as a critical bridging technology in business wise deployment pathway. These technologies also have an essential role in bringing new aspects to the sustainability and greenhouse gas impact discussions as biomass, despite being a globally evenly distributed and renewable raw material, is in the end also a constrained resource that should be utilised in the most reasoned applications taking into account all aspects of sustainability. There are three major biomass conversion routes where bio-CCS is applicable; biochemical conversion (fermentation and hydrolysis), thermo-chemical conversion (e.g. gasification and combustion) and industrial processes. In addition to ethanol fermentation the thermo-chemical biomass conversion processes are considered the first-phase targets for applying capture of CO2, both from a logistic and cost point of view. A concrete example on how more thorough deployment of bio-CCS could penetrate in near-term markets is given as a Finnish bio-CCS roadmap with scenarios highlighting the major bottlenecks and constrains. The roadmap assessment is based on power plant, industrial plant and emission database calculations with future projections on existing installations. In this paper a deployment pathway to a low carbon society is described and discussed. The potential technologies for bio-CCS and bio-CCU are introduced with the feasibility of the solutions compared both from the sustainability and cost point of view