The effects of low impact development on urban flooding under different rainfall characteristics

Copyright © 2013 Elsevier. NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Journal of Environmental Management. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Journal of Environmental Management Vol. 129 (2013), DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2013.08.026Low impact development (LID) is generally regarded as a more sustainable solution for urban stormwater management than conventional urban drainage systems. However, its effects on urban flooding at a scale of urban drainage systems have not been fully understood particularly when different rainfall characteristics are considered. In this paper, using an urbanizing catchment in China as a case study, the effects of three LID techniques (swale, permeable pavement and green roof) on urban flooding are analyzed and compared with the conventional drainage system design. A range of storm events with different rainfall amounts, durations and locations of peak intensity are considered for holistic assessment of the LID techniques. The effects are measured by the total flood volume reduction during a storm event compared to the conventional drainage system design. The results obtained indicate that all three LID scenarios are more effective in flood reduction during heavier and shorter storm events. Their performance, however, varies significantly according to the location of peak intensity. That is, swales perform best during a storm event with an early peak, permeable pavements perform best with a middle peak, and green roofs perform best with a late peak, respectively. The trends of flood reduction can be explained using a newly proposed water balance method, i.e., by comparing the effective storage depth of the LID designs with the accumulative rainfall amounts at the beginning and end of flooding in the conventional drainage system. This paper provides an insight into the performance of LID designs under different rainfall characteristics, which is essential for effective urban flood management.National Natural Science Foundation of ChinaNational Water Pollution Control and Management Technology Major Project

Depletion of WFS1 compromises mitochondrial function in hiPSC-derived neuronal models of Wolfram syndrome

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Deciphering Museums, Politics and Impact

This paper makes a contribution towards deciphering the relationship between museums, politics and impact. I suggest that this is akin to that between three languages in the early nineteenth century: Greek, Demotic and Hieroglyphs. I argue that museums should be taken much more seriously by the discipline of politics and international relations. This paper begins with an analysis of the REF 2014 Impact Case Studies submitted under the Politics and International Studies Unit of Assessment. Thereafter, it looks at how museums have been examined in the field of politics and international relations. Finally, it outlines some of the benefits and opportunities of scholars in the field engaging with museums in terms of their research, as potential collaborators, and as partners for knowledge transfer and impactful activities – within and outwith the strictures of the UK Research Excellence Framework (REF)

Tito under Glass: Museum and Myth in the Making of Croat Yugoslavism

In this dissertation, I investigate the history of Croatian museum theory and practice during and after the era of socialist Yugoslavia. In particular, I explore the development of socialist museology, the extent to which these ideas were implemented in Croatian history museum spaces, the role these history museums played in the development of what I term “Croat Yugoslavism,” and likewise, the extent to which they participated in its destruction in the post-socialist context. I argue firstly that Croatian museology developed into a robust and critically engaged academic study during the socialist era that in many ways kept up with—if not outpaced—advancements in Western museology during the same period. At the same time, as both products and producers of the predominant state mythology of socialist Yugoslavism, I argue that Croatian history museums played a key role in the negotiation of socialist Yugoslav identity and ethnic Croat identity. Far from mere mouthpieces for the socialist Yugoslav state, I contend that Croatian history museums were complex, living institutions that contained a great deal of variety depending on their thematic and temporal scope. As such, I engage with two related conversations: the ongoing process of nationalization in the context of postwar communism, and the role of socialist countries in the development of modern museology. I join these conversations, on the one hand, by analyzing Croatian museological literature in the context of postwar international museology. Specifically, I investigate how Croatian museology developed within the parameters of postwar museology, and crucially, the extent to which it helped establish a new orthodoxy of public oriented museology. On the other hand, I explore a range of Croatian history museums, from Party-line revolutionary and memorial museums to locally oriented regional and city museums. In doing so, I demonstrate the extent to which Croatian history museums played a role in the overall construction of Croat Yugoslavism, and in the process, shed light on the specific areas of Croatian history the Yugoslav state was most interested in harnessing

NAD depletion mediates cytotoxicity in human neurons with autophagy deficiency

Summary: Autophagy is a homeostatic process critical for cellular survival, and its malfunction is implicated in human diseases including neurodegeneration. Loss of autophagy contributes to cytotoxicity and tissue degeneration, but the mechanistic understanding of this phenomenon remains elusive. Here, we generated autophagy-deficient (ATG5−/−) human embryonic stem cells (hESCs), from which we established a human neuronal platform to investigate how loss of autophagy affects neuronal survival. ATG5−/− neurons exhibit basal cytotoxicity accompanied by metabolic defects. Depletion of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) due to hyperactivation of NAD-consuming enzymes is found to trigger cell death via mitochondrial depolarization in ATG5−/− neurons. Boosting intracellular NAD levels improves cell viability by restoring mitochondrial bioenergetics and proteostasis in ATG5−/− neurons. Our findings elucidate a mechanistic link between autophagy deficiency and neuronal cell death that can be targeted for therapeutic interventions in neurodegenerative and lysosomal storage diseases associated with autophagic defect