8,105 research outputs found
Developing Scenarios for Product Longevity and Sufficiency
This paper explores the narrative of peoples’ relationships with products as a window on understanding the types of innovation that may inform a culture of sufficiency. The work forms part of the 'Business as Unusual: Designing Products with Consumers in the Loop' [BaU] project, funded as part of the UK EPSRC-ESRC RECODE network (RECODE, 2016) that aims to explore the potential of re-distributed manufacturing (RdM) in a context of sustainability. This element of the project employed interviews, mapping and workshops as methods to investigate the relationship between people and products across the product lifecycle. A focus on product longevity and specifically the people-product interactions is captured in conversations around product maintenance and repair. In exploring ideas of ‘broken’ we found different characteristics of, and motivations for, repair. Mapping these and other product-people interactions across the product lifecycle indicated where current activity is, who owns such activity (i.e. organisation or individual) and where gaps in interactions occur. These issues were explored further in a workshop which grouped participants to look at products from the perspective of one of four scenarios; each scenario represented either short or long product lifespans and different types of people engagement in the design process. The findings help give shape to new scenarios for designing sufficiency-based social models of material flows
A landscape of repair
This paper reports on EPSRC-funded research that explores the role of repair in creating new models of sustainable business. In the lifecycle stage of repair we explore what 'broken' means and uncover the nature of local and dispersed repair activities. This in turn allows us to better understand how the relationship between products and people can help shape new modes of consumption. Therefore, narratives of repair are collected to identify diverse people-product interactions and illustrate the different characteristics of, and motivations for, repair.
The paper proposes that mapping the different product-people interactions across the product lifecycle, particularly at the stage of fragile-functionality (performance or function failure, emotional disengagement, superseded technology) is important in understanding the potential for enduring products and their repair. Building a landscape of repair creates new opportunities for manufacture and for slowing resource loops across product lifetimes, which together provide a framework for a sufficiency-based model of production and consumption
Tax Liability and Inarbitrability in International Commercial Arbitration
This essay engages in a narrow but crucial inquiry into the limits the inarbitrability defense may now impose upon the exercise of arbitral jurisdiction. While it is assumed that matters relating directly to status and capacity, testamentary dispositions, and title to immovable property fall outside the jurisdictional reach of international arbitrators, the question becomes whether any national regulatory laws, such as tax laws, benefit from the same status of inviolability
Tax Liability and Inarbitrability in International Commercial Arbitration
This essay engages in a narrow but crucial inquiry into the limits the inarbitrability defense may now impose upon the exercise of arbitral jurisdiction. While it is assumed that matters relating directly to status and capacity, testamentary dispositions, and title to immovable property fall outside the jurisdictional reach of international arbitrators, the question becomes whether any national regulatory laws, such as tax laws, benefit from the same status of inviolability
Synthesis and characterization of multiferroic BiMnO
We report on the high pressure synthesis of BiMnO, a manganite
displaying a "quadruple perovskite" structure. Structural characterization of
single crystal samples shows a distorted and asymmetrical coordination around
the Bi atom, due to presence of the lone pair, resulting in
non-centrosymmetric space group Im, leading to a permanent electrical dipole
moment and ferroelectric properties. On the other hand, magnetic
characterization reveals antiferromagnetic transitions, in agreement with the
isostructural compounds, thus evidencing two intrinsic properties that make
BiMnO a promising multiferroic material.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Novel sound absorption materials produced from air laid non-woven feather fibres
This research has investigated the use of feather fibres to produce sound absorption materials as an alternative to the oil derived synthetic plastics that currently dominate the sound absorption materials market. In this paper we show that clean and disinfected waste feathers from the poultry industry can be processed into fibres and air laid using commercial pilot plant facilities to form non-woven feather fibre composite mats. By varying the composition and processing conditions, materials with a range of different properties such as thickness and density were produced. The sound absorption coefficients of samples was determined using the impedance tube method (BS EN ISO 10534-2: 1998), using normal incidence sound between 80 and 1,600 Hz. The data reported shows that air laid non-woven feather fibre mats have improved sound absorption coefficients compared to other natural materials used for sound absorption for a given thickness, particularly in the problematic low frequency range between 250 to 800 Hz. We conclude that air laid non-woven feather fibres have high potential to be used as effective and sustainable sound absorption materials in aerospace, automotive, buildings, infrastructure and other applications where sound absorption is required
14-Bromo-12-chloro-2,16-dioxapentacyclohenicosa-3(8),10,12,14-tetraene-7,20-dione
In the title compound, C19H16BrClO4, both the fused xanthene rings and one of the cyclohexane rings adopt envelope conformations, while the other cyclohexane ring is in a chair conformation. In the crystal, molecules are linked by C-H...O hydrogen bonds, forming infinite chains running along [10-1] incorporating R22(16) ring motifs. In addition, C-H...[pi] interactions and weak [pi]-[pi] stacking interactions [centroid-centroid distance = 3.768 (3) Å] help to consolidate the packing
catena-Poly[[diaquabis(thiocyanato-κN)cobalt(II)]-μ-4,4′-bipyridine-κ2 N:N′] 4,4′-bipyridine solvate]
In the title complex, {[Co(NCS)2(C10H8N2)(H2O)2]·C10H8N2}n, the CoII ion is located on an inversion centre and is coordinated by two N atoms from the two 4,4′-bipyridine ligands, two O atoms from the water molecule, and two N atoms from two isothiocyanate ions in a distorted octahedral environment. In the crystal, the coordinated water molecules, isothiocyanate ions and solvent 4,4′-bipyridine molecules are linked by O—H⋯S and O—H⋯N hydrogen bonds into layers parallel to the ab plane
NaV2O4: a Quasi-1D Metallic Antiferromagnet with Half-Metallic Chains
NaV2O4 crystals were grown under high pressure using a NaCl flux, and the
crystals were characterized with X-ray diffraction, electrical resistivity,
heat capacity, and magnetization. The structure of NaV2O4 consists of double
chains of edge-sharing VO6 octahedra. The resistivity is highly anisotropic,
with the resistivity perpendicular to the chains more than 20 times greater
than that parallel to the chains. Magnetically, the intrachain interactions are
ferromagnetic and the interchain interactions are antiferromagnetic; 3D
antiferromagnetic order is established at 140 K. First principles electronic
structure calculations indicate that the chains are half metallic.
Interestingly, the case of NaV2O4 seems to be a quasi-1D analogue of what was
found for half-metallic materials.Comment: 14 pages, including 4 figures and 1 table, accepted for publication
in PR
Non-Fermi liquid behavior in a fluctuating valence system, the filled skutterudite compound CeRu_{4}As_{12}
Electrical resistivity , specific heat C, and magnetic susceptibility
measurements made on the filled skutterudite CeRu_4As_{12} reveal
non-Fermi liquid (NFL) T - dependences at low T, i.e., (T) T^{1.4}
and weak power law or logarithmic divergences in C(T)/T and (T).
Measurements also show that the T - dependence of the thermoelectric power S(T)
deviates from that seen in other Ce systems. The NFL behavior appears to be
associated with fluctuations of the Ce valence between 3^+ and 4^+ rather than
a typical Kondo lattice scenario that would be appropriate for an integral Ce
valence of 3^+.Comment: 18 pages, 5 figure
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