In What Ways can Electric Vehicles Assist the UK Renewable Energy Strategy?

The latest (June 2008) UK Renewable Energy Strategy (Consultation) document, has called for 30 – 35% of electricity to come from Renewable sources by 2020 As the current level in 2008 of renewable electricity production is 4% (excluding hydro) this is a challenging target. With the Government then, floating the idea of generating 32% of UK electricity by 2020 using wind, it is clearly urgent and important to look for and investigate ways of achieving this. This paper examines the possibility and possible benefits and costs of utilising electric vehicles as storage for the UK electricity grid as a means of harnessing intermittent wind power and hence of assisting with the UK Renewable Energy Strategy. Potentially, the infrastructure use described here could both not only deliver a way of permitting large scale penetrations of intermittent renewable sources in the UK electricity grid but also allow for a significant reduction in the consumption of oil based fuel by the countries’ 32m vehicles and at the same time help to deliver secure electricity from intermittent renewable sources. With input from data provided by the Met Office and by National Grid and with further input from a questionnaire designed to obtain vehicle use patterns, a mathematical model using Microsoft Excel was constructed. Using the model and sample data from 2002 Various scenarios were examined including 20% penetration of wind in 2020 and 32% penetration of wind in 2020. The possibility of 100% wind was also examined

Stopping Racism Through Art

Racism is defined as the belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability, and that a particular race is superior to others. Bigoted behavior is a display of discriminatory or abusive behavior towards members of another race because of these beliefs, and is an omnipresent force still around today

Choosing Embodiment

The purpose of this paper is to review and consider the way in which both interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships are affected by technology. As commentary surrounding an epidemic of loneliness becomes increasingly common, this paper looks to identify and understand what it truly means to be connected. By bringing awareness and understanding to the effects of technology on the experience of relationship, and by offering a deeper understanding of the role of embodiment, it is possible to work towards balanced and healthy relationships that satisfy in quality rather than quantity

Refractions from the book of Amos : a study of a literature of violence from Marxist and Freudian perspectives

This study of the biblical Book of Amos from Marxist and Freudian perspectives demonstrates that the critical approaches so designated complement one another well enough to be adapted and employed constructively in the study of literature and literary production. From the Marxist perspective, the method employed assumes that the literary Amos the text embodies (AmosL) has been derived from an incarnate original (AmosI) reshaped in the process of literary production to serve certain sociopolitcal interests. Following Marx’s thesis that humans must be comprehended materially in “the ensemble of the social relations,” the social location of AmosI is theorized according to the claim that he is not a prophet but a shepherd or, as Norman Gottwald states it sociologically, a transhumant pastoral nomad. Louis Althusser’s concept of the idealizing function of ideology is used to argue that Amos the prophet as opposed to Amos the shepherd is a literary production of the scribes who compiled the Bible. Amos remains, however, a profound literature of alienation manifesting the high degree of hegemony that the emerging monarchical ruling class in Israel had already achieved by Amos’s time. From the Freudian or psychoanalytic perspective, the text exemplifies a consciousness suffering the traumatic effects of an earthquake—effects reflected in the text’s imagery, intensity of voice, incoherence, anxiety, threat of exile, and non-representability. Frank Kermode’s treatment of the mythic extends the concept of the compulsion to repeat characteristic of trauma to suggest that Amos is regressively fixated upon the myth of a tribal, premonarchical Israel as a sort of golden age along the lines developed by Raymond Williams in The Country and The City. Georges Bataille’s concept of sacred violence in its turn underscores the potential of Amos itself to fuel fantasies and acts of violence and raises disturbing questions about the ongoing effects of the sacred canonization of violent literature

Conscription Versus Volunteerism: Taiwan's Commitment to WWII

noThis thesis paper tracks the development of the draft in Taiwan leading up to the Second World War and through its conclusion. In the mobilization of Taiwan as part of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, many factors played a role in first encouraging and then pressing the Taiwanese population into service, including the propagation of mass paranoia labeled spy fever, Japanifized education policies, assimilation projects, general media stresses, social organization allowing for a police state, economics and the weight of Taiwan’s own unique frontier history. All of the routes created a certain frenzied (for lack of a better word) atmosphere and deserve attention in understanding the processes that led young Taiwanese males, and females, to first volunteer in the Imperial Japanese Army, Navy and Air Force and then comply to institutionalized conscription. The story of these individuals remains overlooked in the current reconstruction of Taiwan’s history. The era has been overshadowed by the turbulent events following the Second World War and the landing of half a million Chinese immigrants in Taiwan upon defeat in China. This corner of Taiwan’s history is still inappropriately relegated to the sidelines. With the Second World War generation and in particular the 200,000 who served both in Taiwan and overseas as volunteers and conscripts beginning to die off, the need to get their first-hand accounts recorded and preserved for posterity is pressing. In maintaining their information and stories, the interested historian can do service by adding to the historical record. Knowing this, “From Volunteerism to Conscription: The Mobilization of Taiwan for the Second World War” does not seek to score political points in plotting such a course. The thesis paper simply attempts to better comprehend the mechanisms that worked to pit Taiwan against her ancestral China and to comment on the plight of the survivors, bringing up their influence on Taiwan today. So, this paper will delve into 13 years of history, from 1932 to 1945, when Taiwan sat at the side of Japan as a colonial possession, and did its part in an unprecedented modern territorial expansion. The thesis paper wants to explain more about those who served, and why their service and its outcome might remain relevant in shaping Taiwan’s story at this very moment

The Dewis Choice Initiative:‘Through an older survivor’s eyes’: Co-producing a working virtual reality prototype to improve the response to disclosure of domestic abuse and sexual violence

Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (VAWDASV) has significant social, welfare and economic impacts. Criminal Justice Inspectorate reports (HMICFRS, 2021) and the PEEL assessments 21/22 highlight the police response to domestic abuse victims ‘was not good enough and forces need to take decisive action to rectify this’ Recommendations include adopting a ‘whole systems approach involving partners’ and securing ‘more effective engagement with victims’. This workshop uses a social science perspective to explore the potential of immersive virtual reality tools to support both victims as help seekers and practitioners as help providers at different stages in the help seeking journey. It draws on findings from a twelve-week pilot funded by Welsh Government ‘Through their eyes’ the immersive experience of help seeking for older victim-survivors’ involving the team from Dewis Choice and colleagues Dr Helen Miles and doctoral researcher Andra Jones. The pilot led to a co-produced Virtual Reality (VR) working prototype comprising eight scripted branching scenarios created from the longitudinal study Dewis Choice. The subsequent evaluation demonstrated significant training potential using immersive VR experiences presenting a victim’s perspective 'through their eyes’ of EITHER examples of secondary victimisation/disengagement OR safe positive responses/engagement with help-providers. The findings also highlighted the value of VR in facilitating empathy for practitioners experiencing ‘compassion fatigue’ We wish to host this workshop to discuss potential training and development opportunities in the areas of domestic abuse and sexual violence and seek collaborators to work us to support survivors of VAWDASV across the life course. We aim to have an inclusive approach to the workshop and explore ethical, methodological and pedagogical implications of undertaking co-produced VR research that involves diverse groups of victim-survivor

The Dewis Choice Initiative:‘Through an older survivor’s eyes’: Co-producing a working virtual reality prototype to improve the response to disclosure of domestic abuse and sexual violence

Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (VAWDASV) has significant social, welfare and economic impacts. Criminal Justice Inspectorate reports (HMICFRS, 2021) and the PEEL assessments 21/22 highlight the police response to domestic abuse victims ‘was not good enough and forces need to take decisive action to rectify this’ Recommendations include adopting a ‘whole systems approach involving partners’ and securing ‘more effective engagement with victims’. This workshop uses a social science perspective to explore the potential of immersive virtual reality tools to support both victims as help seekers and practitioners as help providers at different stages in the help seeking journey. It draws on findings from a twelve-week pilot funded by Welsh Government ‘Through their eyes’ the immersive experience of help seeking for older victim-survivors’ involving the team from Dewis Choice and colleagues Dr Helen Miles and doctoral researcher Andra Jones. The pilot led to a co-produced Virtual Reality (VR) working prototype comprising eight scripted branching scenarios created from the longitudinal study Dewis Choice. The subsequent evaluation demonstrated significant training potential using immersive VR experiences presenting a victim’s perspective 'through their eyes’ of EITHER examples of secondary victimisation/disengagement OR safe positive responses/engagement with help-providers. The findings also highlighted the value of VR in facilitating empathy for practitioners experiencing ‘compassion fatigue’ We wish to host this workshop to discuss potential training and development opportunities in the areas of domestic abuse and sexual violence and seek collaborators to work us to support survivors of VAWDASV across the life course. We aim to have an inclusive approach to the workshop and explore ethical, methodological and pedagogical implications of undertaking co-produced VR research that involves diverse groups of victim-survivor