Domestic energy use in England and Wales: a 3D density grid approach

Household energy use is of relevance for studies of sustainability and fuel poverty. Detailed mapping and spatial analysis is possible in the UK due to the release of fine-scale household energy-use data. The cartographical approach used here focuseson urban energy use and the relative performance of urban areas in England and Wales. The energy-use data were transformed to a 1 km 2 grid of cells allowing con-sistent comparisons to be made between urban areas at the same zonal scale. Addi- tionally cells were extruded according to population density, highlighting basic relationships between density and energy use. The urban perspective on energy use is important due to the strong influence of the built environment in determining energy efficiency, and furthermore due to the clustering of affluent and deprived social groups in cities. The results of the mapping highlight how the lowest and the highest energy-use districts are located within the same city-regions, and how further variations in energy use relate to housing density and energy-efficiency behaviours

Global production networks in the aerospace industry: the role of risk and revenue sharing partnerships

The last 30 years have seen a major trend towards the internationalisation of production. In some industry sectors this process has become global as production systems have been integrated on an inter-continental basis. Global production networks have been identified as an important factor in this development. A number of studies have explored the use of global production networks in sectors such as clothing and textiles, electronics and automotive products. In general this research has been confined to consumer items that take the form of standardised, high volume commodities. This study in contrast, examines the use of global production networks by capital goods manufacturers producing non-standardised, high technology products in relatively small volumes. The context is the commercial aerospace industry and an in-depth case study of a single manufacturer, the UK based engine maker Rolls-Royce and the global production network used to develop and manufacture its Trent 1000 engine for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, is presented. The study focuses on the use of risk and revenue sharing partnerships (RRSPs), a form of inter-firm collaboration almost unique in the aerospace industry. It analyses the role of RRSPs in facilitating the creation and operation of global production networks and the driving forces that have led to the use of this form of cooperation. The implications of the move to global production networks are considered both for flagship firms at the centre of such networks and their partners

Controlling the second-harmonic in a phase matched negative-index metamaterial

Nonlinear metamaterials (NLMMs) have been predicted to support new and exciting domains in the manipulation of light, including novel phase matching schemes for wave mixing. Most notable is the so-called nonlinear-optical mirror, in which a nonlinear negative-index medium emits the generated frequency towards the source of the pump. For the first time, we experimentally demonstrate the nonlinear-optical mirror effect in a bulk negative-index NLMM, along with two other novel phase matching configurations, utilizing periodic poling to switch between the three phase matching domains.Comment: 5 pages, 7 figure

Online interactive thematic mapping: Applications and techniques for socio-economic research

Recent advances in public sector open data and online mapping software are opening up new possibilities for interactive mapping in research applications. Increasingly there are opportunities to develop advanced interactive platforms with exploratory and analytical functionality. This paper reviews tools and workflows for the production of online research mapping platforms, alongside a classification of the interactive functionality that can be achieved. A series of mapping case studies from government, academia and research institutes are reviewed. The conclusions are that online cartography's technical hurdles are falling due to open data releases, open source software and cloud services innovations. The data exploration functionality of these new tools is powerful and complements the emerging fields of big data and open GIS. International data perspectives are also increasingly feasible. Analytical functionality for web mapping is currently less developed, but promising examples can be seen in areas such as urban analytics. For more presentational research communication applications, there has been progress in story-driven mapping drawing on data journalism approaches that are capable of connecting with very large audiences

Visualising world population density as an interactive multi-scale map using the global human settlement population layer

Recent advances in global population data are enabling new cartographic and analytical opportunities. The Global Human Settlement Layer is the first sub-1 km cell resolution global population density product released as open data, with many applications in the fields of global population dynamics, urban studies and natural hazard risk. There are several cartographic challenges with visualising this dataset due to the range of spatial scales that are of interest, and the extensive variation in the density of settlements patterns that exist across different regions of the globe. These challenges are tackled here using interactive mapping, allowing navigation from global to city-region scales. A detailed classification and colour scheme is developed to distinguish a wide range of densities at multiple scales. Additionally, interactive statistics are presented for direct numerical comparisons at both country and city scales, further enabling global density comparisons. The interactive map produced has received 30,000 users in four months, indicating the widespread interest in understanding global population density