Barriers and Opportunities for Residential Solar PV and Storage Markets - A Western Australian Case Study

Residents and businesses around the world are increasingly installing solar photovoltaic (PV) panels and battery storage systems, satisfying not just their interest in clean energy, but also taking advantage of reduced technology costs and mitigating against future electricity price rises. Solar PV panels coupled with storage systems present an opportunity to move towards a resilient, affordable, flexible and secure electricity network. Western Australia provides a unique set of conditions (isolated network, high solar radiation, and rising electricity prices), which has contributed to the rapid uptake of solar PV’s in the state. Yet, a number of issues are still obstructing the transition to renewables. Using Western Australia as a case study, this paper investigates the barriers inhibiting the network transformation and explores the role that solar PV and storage can play as a disruptive threat to the incumbent, centralised service model of electricity utilities

Decarbonising Australian cities: A new model for creating low carbon, resilient cities

Australia currently has one of the largest per capita carbon and ecological footprints in the world. It also has a rapidly rising population with significant growth expected into the future. This paper analyses Australia’s existing infrastructure and urban form, the carbon implications associated with it, along with the resources needed to sustain this way of life. The paper demonstrates how the current design of Australian cities based on large houses in low density, dispersed suburbs, which are highly car dependent is extremely resource and emission intensive and ultimately unsustainable. It is argued that the large scale, centralised management of resources, based on outdated technologies and compounded by aging infrastructure further exacerbates the problem. If Australia continues under this ‘business as usual’ scenario, an increase in emissions, along with numerous resource concerns can be expected. The authors contend, therefore, that Australia urgently needs to transform its cities to embrace new low carbon designs and more efficient and resilient urban systems and processes to ensure the long-term viability of Australian cities. A new model for cities is thus proposed, which is based around the concept of decentralized management of resources using new, low carbon technologies that appear to function best at the precinct level. These can help to create more integrated and resilient infrastructure systems within our cities that will greatly improve efficiency.The technologies outlined, however, are dependent on the urban form in that they are only effective and economically viable if sufficient density exists. In the case of Australian cities, this would therefore involve increasing the density in many areas, especially new centres. Adding density has numerous other benefits such as enabling better public transport infrastructure, which will reduce car dependency and the related transported emissions. Using density to transform cities can also improve quality of life by offering more local amenities and better lifestyles

Sustainability in an emerging nation: The Bhutan case study

© 2018 by the authors. With the onset of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement on climate change, the world's nations were to create economic development integrating environmental and social improvement. However, there is still much uncertainty in the world of politics and academia as to whether these integrated goals are achievable and how they can fit best with diverse national and local contexts. Thus, there is always a need to find nations that can show how it can be achieved in different settings shaped by local experiences, challenges, and opportunities. Bhutan could be one of these nations as it could be argued that it has, to an extent, simplified the task to fit its values and aspirations. Bhutan has three major goals that need to be integrated: Wealth (GDP) to align with their middle-income aspiration, thus providing opportunities for employment, Greenhouse Gas emissions (GHG) that are maintained at a carbon neutral level, which is beyond most national commitments, and Bhutan's renowned Gross National Happiness (GNH) index, which covers their socio-economic goals. We show this integration and then synthesize some core findings from a literature review on the theory and practice of sustainable development through the lens of the three integrated goals of Bhutan, thereby placing the case of Bhutan into the wider literature. This paper seeks to show how one emerging nation can model an operational sustainability policy. The paper highlights some plausible synergies between the 17 SDGs and the domains and indicators of GNH that could help nations struggling with how they can create sensible sustainability outcomes from these new global agendas. Bhutan has framed the GNH as its contribution to sustainability. However, this paper suggests that it may be the integration of the GNH with GDP and GHG that is its real contribution. Furthermore, Bhutan's 3G model of fully integrating GNH, GDP, and GHG suggests a way forward for achieving their imperatives of economic growth, whilst enabling the SDGs and achieving the difficult climate change goal. It may also suggest a model for other nations wanting to find a complementary way of framing economic growth, the 17 SDGs, and the Paris Agreement into a coherent set of policies

Das Präventionsgesetz und seine Potenziale für eine gesundheitsfördernde Stadtentwicklung

Mit der Verabschiedung des Präventionsgesetzes (Gesetz zur Stärkung der Gesundheitsförderung und der Prävention) als Teil des Fünften Sozialgesetzbuches im Jahre 2015 hat der Bundestag die Bedeutung von Prävention und Gesundheitsförderung in ebenswelten unterstrichen. Beide sollen dort greifen, wo Menschen leben, lernen und arbeiten. Hieraus ergeben sich auf Basis des Leistungskatalogs des Leitfadens Prävention des Spitzenverbandes der gesetzlichen Krankenkassen eine Reihe von Anknüpfungspunkten für Stadtplanung und Stadtentwicklung in den Bereichen Bedarfsermittlung und Zielentwicklung, Beratung zu verhältnispräventiven Umgestaltungen, Fortbildung von Multiplikatorinnen und Multiplikatoren, Planung und Umsetzung verhaltenspräventiver Maßnahmen, Dokumentation, Evaluation, Qualitätssicherung sowie Öffentlichkeitsarbeit und Förderung von Vernetzungsprozessen. Bereits vor dem Inkrafttreten des Präventionsgesetzes haben sich vereinzelt Krankenkassen für eine gesundheitsfördernde Stadtentwicklung finanziell engagiert. Dieses Engagement kann konkrete Vorbilder für die Umsetzung des Präventionsgesetzes im Setting Kommune liefern.By passing the Prevention Act in 2015 the German Bundestag underlined the importance of prevention and health promotion in various settings. Both are to be implemented where people live, learn and work. Based on a guideline on prevention by the statutory health insurance organisations several starting points for urban planning and development can be identified: needs assessment, development of goals, advice on environmental health prevention, development of multipliers, planning and implementation of measures for environmental health promotion, documentation, evaluation, public relations and support of network activities. Even before the Prevention Act was passed a few health insurance organisations provided financial support for health-promoting urban development. These activities could function as examples for the implementation of the Prevention Act in the settings of municipalities and neighbourhoods

Low-Carbon Sustainable Precincts: An Australian Perspective

Australia’s urban built environment contributes significantly to the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions; therefore, encouraging urban development to pursue low-carbon outcomes will aid in reducing carbon in the overall economy. Cities and urban areas are configured in precincts, which have been identified as an ideal scale for low-carbon technologies that address energy, water and waste. Even though new governance models and systems are being created to enable low-carbon precincts to operate with a degree of independence within a broader centralised utility structure, greater effort is required to refocus governance on this smaller scale of delivery. Furthermore, at this time, no consistent carbon accounting framework is in place to measure emissions or emission reductions at this scale, thereby limiting the ability to acknowledge or reward progressive, sustainable low-carbon developments. To respond to this situation, a framework is proposed that could form both the basis of a carbon certification scheme for the built environment and provide a platform for generating carbon credits from urban development

Geoengineering in the anthropocene through regenerative urbanism

Human consumption patterns exceed planetary boundaries and stress on the biosphere can be expected to worsen. The recent "Paris Agreement" (COP21) represents a major international attempt to address risk associated with climate change through rapid decarbonisation. The mechanisms for implementation are yet to be determined and, while various large-scale geoengineering projects have been proposed, we argue a better solution may lie in cities. Large-scale green urbanism in cities and their bioregions would offer benefits commensurate to alternative geoengineering proposals, but this integrated approach carries less risk and has additional, multiple, social and economic benefits in addition to a reduction of urban ecological footprint. However, the key to success will require policy writers and city makers to deliver at scale and to high urban sustainability performance benchmarks. To better define urban sustainability performance, we describe three horizons of green urbanism: green design, that seeks to improve upon conventional development; sustainable development, that is the first step toward a net zero impact; and the emerging concept of regenerative urbanism, that enables biosphere repair. Examples of green urbanism exist that utilize technology and design to optimize urban metabolism and deliver net positive sustainability performance. If mainstreamed, regenerative approaches can make urban development a major urban geoengineering force, while simultaneously introducing life-affirming co-benefits to burgeoning cities

Medical Image Segmentation Review: The success of U-Net

Automatic medical image segmentation is a crucial topic in the medical domain and successively a critical counterpart in the computer-aided diagnosis paradigm. U-Net is the most widespread image segmentation architecture due to its flexibility, optimized modular design, and success in all medical image modalities. Over the years, the U-Net model achieved tremendous attention from academic and industrial researchers. Several extensions of this network have been proposed to address the scale and complexity created by medical tasks. Addressing the deficiency of the naive U-Net model is the foremost step for vendors to utilize the proper U-Net variant model for their business. Having a compendium of different variants in one place makes it easier for builders to identify the relevant research. Also, for ML researchers it will help them understand the challenges of the biological tasks that challenge the model. To address this, we discuss the practical aspects of the U-Net model and suggest a taxonomy to categorize each network variant. Moreover, to measure the performance of these strategies in a clinical application, we propose fair evaluations of some unique and famous designs on well-known datasets. We provide a comprehensive implementation library with trained models for future research. In addition, for ease of future studies, we created an online list of U-Net papers with their possible official implementation. All information is gathered in https://github.com/NITR098/Awesome-U-Net repository.Comment: Submitted to the IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence Journa

Carbon neutral policy in action: the case of Bhutan

Climate policy across the world is proceeding at a highly variable pace, with some places very committed to decarbonizing their economies and others just beginning. Emerging nations are generally just starting along this journey. However, among the few nation states that have pledged to achieve carbon neutrality, is Bhutan, a least developed country. Carbon neutrality is an ambitious climate policy that is increasingly being recognized as necessary in order to stabilize global temperature rise at 1.5°C. However, Bhutan is likely to face significant challenges in maintaining this status as the country balances its desire to grow in economic opportunities (GDP) and in human happiness (GNH). Little research has been conducted inside the policy processes to better understand how Bhutan will maintain carbon neutrality. Through open-ended, semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders, this study provides an inside view on the current situation and future challenges that Bhutan may face, along with the complexities associated with implementing and maintaining an ambitious carbon neutral policy. The paper highlights Bhutan's story and how it could be useful for policy learning and knowledge sharing, especially in the context of emerging nations’ climate governance

Porträt und soziale Distinktion / Portrait et Distinction Sociale

Für die bildliche Darstellung bestimmter sozialer Gruppen wurden im Hellenismus und in der römischen Kaiserzeit spezifische Darstellungsweisen entwickelt. Die zwölf Beiträge dieses Bandes untersuchen, wie exklusive Trachtmotive, signifikante Attribute und charakteristische Posen genutzt wurden, um den prominenten Rang von Individuen oder Personenverbänden deutlich zu machen