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particularly at the stage of fragile-functionality (performance or function failure, emotional disengagement, superseded technology) is important in understanding the potential for enduring products and their repair.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

Crystallographic disorder and electron scattering on structural two-level systems in ZrAs1.4Se0.5

Single crystals of ZrAs1.4Se0.5 (PbFCl type structure) were grown by chemical vapour transport. While their thermodynamic and transport properties are typical for ordinary metals, the electrical resistivity exhibits a shallow minimum at low temperatures. Application of strong magnetic fields does not influence this anomaly. The minimum of the resistivity in ZrAs1.4Se0.5 apparently originates from interaction between the conduction electrons and structural two-level systems. Significant disorder in the As-Se substructure is inferred from X-ray diffraction and electron microprobe studies

Bis(pyridine-κN)bis­(triphenyl­phosphine-κP)copper(I) tetra­fluoridoborate

The title compound, [Cu(C5H5N)2(C18H15P)2]BF4, crystallizes as discrete [(PPh3)2(py)2Cu]+ cations and [BF4]− anions and is isostructural with the analogous perchlorate salt. The anion is located in close proximity to the pyridine ligands with weak C—H⋯F inter­actions apparent. The P2CuN2 coordination geometry is pseudo-tetra­hedral, with P—Cu—P and N—Cu—N angles of 116.02 (6) and 101.5 (2)°, respectively

Schizophrenia succeeded by affective illness: catamnestic study and statistical enquiry

On the basis of data derived from a long-term follow-up of 12 cases and a 2-year follow-up of the International Pilot Study of Schizophrenia it is suggested that some patients with remitting schizophrenic illnesses can subsequently present clear-cut affective disorders. The implications of these findings are discusse

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

CRYSTAL AND MOLECULAR-STRUCTURE OF 2',3',5'-TRI-O-ACETYL-6-O-(MESITYLENESULPHONYL)GUANOSINE

The structure of a 6-O-mesitylenesulphonyl derivative of 2',3',5'-tri-O-acetylguanosine, C 24 H 29 N50 10 S, has been determined by X-ray diffraction. Crystals are monoclinic, a = 26.370 (4), b = 8.200 (2), c = 17.991 (3) A, fl = 132.77 (4) o. The solution of the structure in space group C2 was not straightforward and is described in detail. Refinement converged at R = 0.110 for 1102 observed reflections. The guanine base displays some deviations from its usual geometry due to the loss of C(6)-O(6) double-bond character. The ribose sugar is C(2')-endo puckered

Bis[1-(1-adamantyliminomethyl)-2-naphtholato-κ2 N,O]cobalt(II)

The title compound, [Co(C21H22NO)2], crystallizes with two mol­ecules in the asymmetric unit. The coordination environments of the two CoII ions are distorted tetra­hedral. The primary structural difference between the two independent complex mol­ecules lies in the orientations of their adamantyl groups

4-Hydr­oxy-4,4-diphenyl­butan-2-one

The mol­ecules of the title compound, C16H16O2, display an intra­molecular O—H⋯O hydrogen bond between the hydroxyl donor and the ketone acceptor. Inter­molecular C—H⋯π inter­actions connect adjacent mol­ecules into chains that propagate parallel to the ac diagonal. The chains are arranged in sheets, and mol­ecules in adjacent sheets inter­act via inter­molecular O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds