Low-carbon energy: a roadmap

Technologies available today, and those expected to become competitive over the next decade, will permit a rapid decarbonization of the global energy economy. New renewable energy technologies, combined with a broad suite of energy-efficiency advances, will allow global energy needs to be met without fossil fuels and by adding only minimally to the cost of energy services The world is now in the early stages of an energy revolution that over the next few decades could be as momentous as the emergence of oiland electricity-based economies a century ago. Double-digit market growth, annual capital flows of more than $100 billion, sharp declines in technology costs, and rapid progress in the sophistication and effectiveness of government policies all herald a promising new energy era. Advanced automotive, electronics, and buildings systems will allow a substantial reduction in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, at negative costs once the savings in energy bills is accounted for. The savings from these measures can effectively pay for a significant portion of the additional cost of advanced renewable energy technologies to replace fossil fuels, including wind, solar, geothermal, and bioenergy. Resource estimates indicate that renewable energy is more abundant than all of the fossil fuels combined, and that well before mid-century it will be possible to run most national electricity systems with minimal fossil fuels and only 10 percent of the carbon emissions they produce today. The development of smart electricity grids, the integration of plug-in electric vehicles, and the addition of limited storage capacity will allow power to be provided without the baseload plants that are the foundation of today's electricity systems. Recent climate simulations conclude that CO2 emissions will need to peak within the next decade and decline by at least 50 to 80 percent by 2050. This challenge will be greatly complicated by the fact that China, India, and other developing countries are now rapidly developing modern energy systems. The only chance of slowing the buildup of CO2 concentrations soon enough to avoid catastrophic climate change that could take centuries to reverse is to transform the energy economies of industrial and developing countries almost simultaneously. This would have seemed nearly impossible a few years ago, but since then, the energy policies and markets of China and India have begun to change rapidly -- more rapidly than those in many industrial countries. Renewable and efficiency technologies will allow developing countries to increase their reliance on indigenous resources and reduce their dependence on expensive and unstable imported fuelsAround the world, new energy systems could become a huge engine of industrial development and job creation, opening vast new economic opportunities. Developing countries have the potential to "leapfrog" the carbon-intensive development path of the 20th century and go straight to the advanced energy systems that are possible today. Improved technology and high energy prices have created an extraordinarily favorable market for new energy systems over the past few years. But reaching a true economic tipping point will require innovative public policies and strong political leadership

The Self, the Church, and Medieval Identities: The Evolution of the Individual in Medieval Literature

This dissertation examines the construction of literary identities by medieval women, recognizable as an authorial voice that is distinct from those of her contemporaries yet congruent with the gender norms and expectations of her contemporary culture, in both religious and secular literatures from late antiquity through the waning of the Middle Ages. The argument posited here is that texts authored by women, as informed by concurrent male texts and the literary traditions in which individual authors seek to participate, can be read as a taxonomy of responses to the traditions individual authors appropriate and to their contemporaries, directly responding to and incorporating elements from each in order to position themselves within the literate culture by accessing the shared traditions, norms and memories of the community. Focusing on primary texts authored by women makes it possible to more fully examine the intertextual nature of women\u27s identity in medieval literature, the impact of male discourse on the identities available to women as writers and as women, and the diverse positions they assign to themselves through the construction of literary identities, both orthodox and heterodox. The delimination of the culture and the traditions in which individual authors participate clarifies both the self-positioning engaged in by individual authors and the function of their text, in its native context, while placing these texts and their authors in a meaningful context for modern scholars. The project is divided into six broadly chronological chapters which engage with key authors and place them in dialogue with both their male contemporaries and previous generations of women\u27s writings. The first chapter, (En)Gendering Texts, focuses on the texts from late antiquity which have the most measurable and lasting impact on subsequent women\u27s writings and engage directly with the patristic sources for communal Christian identity in the period. The second chapter, Perpetua and Her Daughters, highlights the role of women\u27s texts in the education of both genders throughout the period and begins the process of contextualizing women\u27s independent identities within the rubric of the Christian West. Chapter Three, Constructing a New Self, approaches the letters of Heloise to Abelard and her other correspondents as a model for women\u27s writing and the construction of polysemic identities within the traditions. Chapter Four, Re-Envisioning the Passions, places mystics such as Hildegard of Bingen and Julian of Norwich in dialogue with the patristic traditions and medieval philosophy in order to illustrate the degrees of self-determination possible in women\u27s texts while continuing to be viewed as orthodox. The fifth chapter examines the phenomena of affective piety, ascetic mysticism, and the uses of the body in creating a tangible identity for women writers in the period. The final chapter examines the tensions between the medieval and patristic traditions and the changing political and social geography of the later Middle Ages and the impact of these cultural shifts on women\u27s writing and their access to the traditions

An Engineering Evaluation of Ankle Prosthetics

There are a wide range of different types of ankle replacements on the market today each with adifferent mechanical design. Unfortunately the results of ankle replacements are not as good as hipand knee replacements; this is due to the complexity of the ankle joint. In the early days of anklereplacements some of the prosthetics only lasted 4 months. Recent developments have improved thelongevity of the replacements although, there are still many complications and failures of thereplacements, these include; the prosthetic components migrating into the bone, the componentsfailing due to stresses induced by the forces and the surgery itself i.e. the incision site.This paper will analyse the documented medical failures of the replacements from a mechanicalengineering perspective. Three ankle prosthetics are investigated in this paper: the Buechel-Pappas,the Scandinavian Total Ankle Replacement (STAR) and the Hintegra ankle replacement. Medicalpublications are examined to isolate the mechanical failure mechanisms of the replacements and tocategorise and quantify these failures in engineering terms. These failures will include wearcomplications and also dislocations of the prosthetic parts among other failures. The paper will conclude by comparing the mechanical reliability of the four prosthetics examined

picoBrew: Automated Home Brew

The picoBrew project determined the marketable requirements of a small-scale automated beer brewing system. Techniques from industrial robotics were applied to the basic home brew cycle, resulting in a prototype design which could be easily controlled as well as manufactured. The prototype design focused on repeatability and ease of cleaning, two of the major requirements as determined from market studies. The prototype was capable of independently performing the heating, ingredient handling, and cooling cycles required to make beer