A Ghost is Haunting Europe

Review of Responsible Selves: Women in the Nordic Legal Cultures (Kevät Nousiainen, Åsa Gunnarsson, Karin Lundström, & Johanna Niemi-Kiesiläinen eds.

Electricity as an Energy Carrier in Transport: Cost and Efficiency Comparison of Different Pathways

This study includes a techno-economic assessment of different pathways of using electricity in passenger cars and short sea ships, with a special focus on electrofuels (i.e.fuels produced from electricity, water and CO2) and electric road systems (ERS). For passenger cars electro-diesel is shown to be cost-competitive compare to battery electric vehicles with larger batteries (BEV50kWh) and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCEV), assuming optimistic cost for the electrolyser. ERS is shown to reduce the vehicle cost substantially compare to BEV50kWh and FCEV, but depend on a new large scale infrastructure. For ships it is shown that battery electric vessels with a relatively small battery has the lowest cost. Electro-diesel and hydrogen can compete with the battery options only when ships operate few days per year

Does More Time in a Therapeutic Garden Lead to a Faster Return to Work? A Prospective Cohort Study of Nature-Based Therapy, Exploring the Relationship between Dose and Response in the Rehabilitation of Long-Term Patients Suffering from Stress

Background: Stress-related mental illness is increasing worldwide and leading to long-term illness. Most of those affected are aged 30-50, so the need for rehabilitation and return to work for these patients is great. Research indicates that staying in nature can lead to stress recovery. The question is whether nature-based therapy can rehabilitate people who suffer from long-term stress-related mental illness, and how long a period of rehabilitation is necessary. Methods and findings: The research was carried out at Alnarp Rehabilitation Garden, which is a specially designed health garden on the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences’ campus area, where the participants in the study were treated by a licensed rehabilitation team. The intention was to examine three cohorts of participants prospectively. These were offered different lengths of a nature-based rehabilitation program through a natural experiment. Participants were referred to Alnarp Rehabilitation Garden from three local social insurance agencies that granted different lengths of rehabilitation programs: 8 weeks, 12 weeks and 24 weeks. The length of the program was determined by which local social insurance agencies they belonged to, not the participants' level of illness. Primary outcome was return to work. Other outcomes were occupational function, personal control and sense of coherence. The results showed that all three rehabilitation interventions gave significantly good results, but that longer nature-based rehabilitation led to significantly better results for all outcomes. The 12-week program provided 75% greater return to paid work and the 24-week program 120% greater return to paid work than the 8-week program. Conclusion: There is a significant positive relationship between treatment time in the rehabilitation garden and return to work. The study also indicates that the effects may level off after twelve weeks. More studies are needed to further investigate the relationships

Electrofuels: a review of pathways and production costs

Electrofuels are produced from carbon dioxide (CO2) and water using electricity as the primary source of energy. Production costs for the fuel options methane, methanol, dimethyl ether, Fischer-Tropsch (FT) diesel are estimated based on different assumptions. The production costs of these electrofuels, for a best, average and worst case, was found to be in the range of 120-135, 200-230 and 650-770 €2015/MWh fuel respectively where methane had the lowest and FT diesel the highest costs within each range