What are your thoughts on SNC graduates decorating mortarboards in preparation for commencement ceremonies? There were quite a few clever ones this year!

Abbot Pennings answers a question about commencement bling, archived from the SNC website

Economic models to evaluate energy costs: Are externalities and energy accounting the answer?

Aim: In the context of climate change this paper explores the value of models for evaluating energy costs by considering energy accounting and externalities instead of capitalistic economics. Research methods: We test the hypothesis that the conventional economic model of the energy market can lead to inappropriate choices, and that those choices may be environmentally damaging. We examine energy accounting (energy return on energy investment), embodied energy and the incorporation of external costs as more valuable economic models. Findings: This paper reviews existing economic tools and examines modifications, which, when applied to energy provision or efficiency and conservation of energy applications, may give more accurate information about investment, return and environmental damage. Energy accounting of schemes should be a preliminary requirement for all proposed energy schemes. Externalities are less readily applied, but as the costs associated with renewable energy are becoming competitive in conventional economic terms, they are less valuable than energy accounting. Value of the paper: The paper concludes that a preliminary assessment of a proposed energy scheme should be undertaken using energy accounting and external costs to determine the true energy value. These models could be used to select the best environmental option. Indeed "energy uneconomic" schemes, which cost more energy than they deliver, should be abandoned in order to avoid unnecessary environmental damage. After this process, legislation and fiscal measures such as taxes and incentives could be applied to satisfy social and political imperatives. Examples of energy accounting in insulation and consideration of external costs in a proposed strategy to replace fossil-fuelled electrical generation in Indonesia are included in the paper. Limitations: We have not considered the serious question of finite fossil fuel resources and feel that this would be a profitable line of research

Alternative Processes for Water Reclamation and Solid Waste Processing in a Physical/chemical Bioregenerative Life Support System

Viewgraphs on alternative processes for water reclamation and solid waste processing in a physical/chemical-bioregenerative life support system are presented. The main objective is to focus attention on emerging influences of secondary factors (i.e., waste composition, type and level of chemical contaminants, and effects of microorganisms, primarily bacteria) and to constructively address these issues by discussing approaches which attack them in a direct manner

Nanomaterial structure determination using XUV diffraction

Diffraction using coherent XUV radiation is used to study the structure of nanophotonic materials, in this case an ordered array of 196nm spheres. Crystal structure and defects are visible, and the nanomaterial dielectric constant determined

Emotion regulation in psychopathy

Emotion processing is known to be impaired in psychopathy, but less is known about the cognitive mechanisms that drive this. Our study examined experiencing and suppression of emotion processing in psychopathy. Participants, violent offenders with varying levels of psychopathy, viewed positive and negative images under conditions of passive viewing, experiencing and suppressing. Higher scoring psychopathics were more cardiovascularly responsive when processing negative information than positive, possibly reflecting an anomalously rewarding aspect of processing normally unpleasant material. When required to experience emotional response, by ‘getting into the feeling’ of the emotion conveyed by a negative image, higher factor 1 psychopathic individuals showed reduced responsiveness, suggesting that they were less able to do this. These data, together with the absence of corresponding differences in subjective self-report might be used to inform clinical strategies for normalising emotion processing in psychopathic offenders to improve treatment outcome, and reduce risk amongst this client group