198 research outputs found
Dilemmas of Development and The Reconstruction of Fashion
Sustainable development by its nature appears elusive. It seems the more we try to capture and pin it down the more it moves away from us leading us into murkier waters and all manner of contradictions. No more is this felt than in the fashion industry where we are presented with a number of oppositions. The fashion cycle renders styles obsolete before they have worn out generating waste and over-consumptive practices. But it can also bring into the fore practices that have resonance to sustainable development in terms of their location, orientation and consideration for the environment. As studies emerge considering the detrimental environmental impacts of the manufacture and consumption of new clothes, second-hand clothes have become a focus for research endeavours considering how they can be reincorporated into the fashion system and have resonance to an ever âfashionâ hungry consumer. This chapter discusses methods for the processing of second-hand clothes into fashionable items and, by drawing on the wealth of âwasteâ materials through reselling, restyling and remanufacturing, argues that ways of re-appropriating them into a more environmentally focused fashion industry is possible and necessary. It sets out as it hypothesis that the global fashion system has value in its transformative powers but that damaging and exploitative forces are still preventing it from being a force for good. This is due to the nature of the items being produced, the way they are manufactured and how they are ultimately consumed and disposed of
Structure, Photophysics and the Order-Disorder Transition to the Beta Phase in Poly(9,9-(di -n,n-octyl)fluorene)
X-ray diffraction, UV-vis absorption and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy
have been used to study the well-known order-disorder transition (ODT) to the
beta phase in poly(9,9-(di n,n-octyl)fluorene)) (PF8) thin film samples through
combination of time-dependent and temperature-dependent measurements. The ODT
is well described by a simple Avrami picture of one-dimensional nucleation and
growth but crystallization, on cooling, proceeds only after molecular-level
conformational relaxation to the so called beta phase. Rapid thermal quenching
is employed for PF8 studies of pure alpha phase samples while extended
low-temperature annealing is used for improved beta phase formation. Low
temperature PL studies reveal sharp Franck-Condon type emission bands and, in
the beta phase, two distinguishable vibronic sub-bands with energies of
approximately 199 and 158 meV at 25 K. This improved molecular level structural
order leads to a more complete analysis of the higher-order vibronic bands. A
net Huang-Rhys coupling parameter of just under 0.7 is typically observed but
the relative contributions by the two distinguishable vibronic sub-bands
exhibit an anomalous temperature dependence. The PL studies also identify
strongly correlated behavior between the relative beta phase 0-0 PL peak
position and peak width. This relationship is modeled under the assumption that
emission represents excitons in thermodynamic equilibrium from states at the
bottom of a quasi-one-dimensional exciton band. The crystalline phase, as
observed in annealed thin-film samples, has scattering peaks which are
incompatible with a simple hexagonal packing of the PF8 chains.Comment: Submitted to PRB, 12 files; 1 tex, 1 bbl, 10 eps figure
Designing for emergence and innovation: Redesigning design
We reveal the surprising and counterintuitive truth that the design process, in and
of itself, is not always on the forefront of innovation. Design is a necessary but
not a sufficient condition for the success of new products and services. We
intuitively sense a connection between innovative design and emergence. The
nature of design, emergence and innovation to understand their interrelationships
and interdependencies is examined. We propose that design must harness the
process of emergence; for it is only through the bottom-up and massively
iterative unfolding of emergence that new and improved products and services
are successfully refined, introduced and diffused into the marketplace.
The relationships among design, emergence and innovation are developed.
What designers can learn from nature about emergence and evolution that will
impact the design process is explored. We examine the roles that design and
emergence play in innovation. How innovative organizations can incorporate
emergence into their design process is explored.
We demarcate the boundary between invention and innovation. We also
articulate the similarities and differences of design and emergence. We then
develop the following three hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1: âAn innovative design is an emergent design.â
Hypothesis 2: âA homeostatic relationship between design and emergence is a
required condition for innovation.âHypothesis 3: âSince design is a cultural activity and culture is an emergent
phenomenon, it follows that design leading to innovation is also an emergent
phenomenonâ
We provide a number of examples of how design and emergence have worked
together and led to innovation. Examples include the tool making of early man;
the evolutionary chain of the six languages speech, writing, math, science,
computing and the Internet; the Gutenberg printing press and techniques of
collaborative filtering associated with the Internet.
We close by describing the relationship between human and naturally âdesignedâ
systems and the notion a key element of a design is its purpose as is the case
with a living organism
The value of toys: 6â8-year-old children's toy preferences and the functional analysis of popular toys
Idle hands are the devilâs tools: The geopolitics and geoeconomics of hunger
In current geopolitical and geoeconomic discourses, hunger is understood as both a threat to be contained, resulting in an often severe social and spatial localization of food insecurity, and a humanitarian problem to be solved through diffuse global flows of food and other aid. The resulting scalar tensions demonstrate the potentially contradictory alignment of geopolitics and geoeconomics within processes of globalization and neoliberalization. This article examines the geopolitical and geoeconomic place of hunger and the hungry through a critical analysis of the food-for-work (FFW) approach to combating hunger. FFW programs distribute food aid in exchange for labor, and have long been used to plan and deliver food aid. While debate continues as to whether and under what conditions FFW programs are socially and economically just, governments, international institutions, and NGOs tout them as a flexible and efficient way to deliver targeted aid, promote community development, and improve long-term prospects for economic development and food security. In the post-9/11 period, FFW programs are also cited as effective deterrents to terrorist recruitment strategies, while development and food security more broadly have been incorporated into national security strategies, especially but not only in the United States. The food-for-work approach attempts to resolve the scalar contradictions of hunger through the imposition of a labor requirement that disciplines the threat of the hungry while enforcing global connection. Case studies of FFW programs in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Indonesia illustrate this contradiction, and highlight the development and possible future of approaches to hunger under neoliberal geopolitics
From Mexico to Beijing: "Women in Development" Twenty Five Years On
During the past twenty five years the Women in Development (WID)approach has become an increasingly important issue in the literature on Third World development. WID issues and related activities have now been incorporated into the aid practice of most development agencies. This paper critically analyses the diverse and conflicting ideologies that have emerged in the WID literature since the early seventies
(Un)becoming women: Indian factory women's counternarratives of gender
This paper portrays the life stories of five factory workers in Delhi whose life trajectories run counter to normative femininity. As daughters and wives, they are neglected, abandoned or rejected by their families; they live alone, with their parents past the age that is their natal right, with siblings, or with families and men who are not related to them. I explore the circulation of their counternarratives and how their gender transgressions go public through ordinary forms of talk, such as gossip and rumor. I argue that their move out of the normative is not produced by, but produces, their gender politics; that their agency emerges cognitively from the telling of their stories in tandem with their interlocutors' credulity and uptake; and that the site of gender politics for working class Indian women lies in the informal subaltern publics that are formed by the circulation of their stories. Contrary to the notion of a stable unitary subject that precedes the political, these women's counternarratives demonstrate the subjectâinâprocess as a political effect. Their alterity does not exist outside the heteronormative gender order but demarcates the boundaries of its historicity, hinting at both the internal contradictions of existing gender relations and their future possibilities.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/112196/1/j.1467-954X.2011.02026.x.pd
Geografie relazionali nella storia del design
Con il tema delle âgeografie relazionaliâ l'intenzione di questo numero Ăš di valorizzare studi e ricerche che assumono approcci tipici delle scienze sociali per la comprensione e la spiegazione del design. Questo, infatti, oltre ad essere fatto di âcoseâ, strutture materializzate (come la nazione o la comunitĂ ), individui e meccanismi, Ăš composto soprattutto di reti e fatti sociali: un insieme intricato e complesso di intersecazioni, rete di flussi e di relazioni..
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