Thermal modernity and architecture

This paper develops the concept of thermal modernity in order to offer a more detailed understanding of air conditioning and the historical role it has played in transforming urban and built space. An analysis oriented by the insights of Science and Technology Studies stresses how the international ascendancy of air conditioning has been contingent upon certain socio-political forces and cultural changes that occur at the local level. The productive example of Singapore - often referred to as the air-conditioned nation - is given to reveal the entanglements between indoor comfort provision, economic development and post-colonial nation-building. At a broader level, the paper points towards the importance of understanding air conditioning's impact on the spread of international modernism in analytically expansive ways, such that we can more fully appreciate how it has acted to remodel the built environment at different scales and reconfigure indoor and outdoor relationships.

2nd generation concrete construction: carbon footprint accounting

Purpose – Construction contractors and facility managers are being challenged to minimize the carbon footprint. Life cycle carbon‐equivalent (CO2‐e) accounting, whereby the potential emissions of greenhouse gases due to energy expenditure during construction and subsequent occupation of built infrastructure, generally ceases at the end of the service life. However, following demolition, recycling of demolition waste that becomes incorporated into 2nd generation construction is seldom considered within the management of the carbon footprint. This paper aims to focus on built concrete infrastructure, particularly the ability of recycled concrete to chemically react with airborne CO2, thereby significantly influencing CO2‐e estimates.

Design/methodology/approach – CO2‐e estimates were made in accordance with the methodology outlined in the Australian National Greenhouse Accounts (NGA) Factors and were based on the energy expended for each life cycle activity from audited records. Offsets to the CO2‐e estimates were based on the documented ability of concrete to chemically react with airborne carbon dioxide (“carbonation”) and predictions of CO2 uptake by concrete and recycled concrete was made using existing predictive diffusion models. The author's study focused on a built concrete bridge which was demolished and recycled at the end of the service life, and the recycled concrete was utilized towards 2nd generation construction. The sensitivity of CO2‐e and carbonation estimates were tested on several different types of source demolition waste as well as subsequent construction applications using recycled concrete (RCA). Whole‐of‐life CO2‐e estimates, including carbonation of RCA over the 1st and 2nd generations, were estimated and contrasted with conventional carbon footprints that end at the conclusion of the 1st generation.

Findings – Following demolition, CO2 capture by RCA is significant due to the more permeable nature of the crushed RCA compared with the original built infrastructure. RCA also has considerably greater exposed surface area, relative to volume, than a built concrete structure, and therefore more highly exposed surface to react with CO2: it therefore carbonates more comprehensively. CO2‐e estimates can be offset by as much as 55‐65 per cent when including the contribution of carbonation of RCA built within 2nd generation infrastructure. Further offsets are achievable using blended fly ash or slag cement binders; however, this study has focused on concrete composed of 100 per cent OPC binders and the effects of RCA.

Originality/value – Construction project estimates of life cycle CO2‐e emissions should include 2nd generation applications that follow the demolition of the 1st generation infrastructure. Life cycle estimates generally end at the time of demolition. However, by incorporating the recycled concrete demolition waste into the construction of 2nd generation infrastructure, the estimated CO2‐e is significantly offset during the 2nd generation life cycle by chemical uptake of CO2 (carbonation). This paper provides an approach towards inclusion of 2nd generation construction applications into whole‐of‐life estimates of CO2‐e.

2nd hand cinema

Image of scratched frames from 16mm film, reframed and published as stand-alone image

The 2nd Berlin BedRest Study: protocol and implementation

Long-term bed-rest is used to simulate the effect of spaceflight on the human body and test different kinds of countermeasures. The 2nd Berlin BedRest Study (BBR2-2) tested the efficacy of whole-body vibration in addition to high-load resisitance exercise in preventing bone loss during bed-rest. Here we present the protocol of the study and discuss its implementation. Twenty-four male subjects underwent 60-days of six-degree head down tilt bed-rest and were randomised to an inactive control group (CTR), a high-load resistive exercise group (RE) or a high-load resistive exercise with whole-body vibration group (RVE). Subsequent to events in the course of the study (e.g. subject withdrawal), 9 subjects participated in the CTR-group, 7 in the RVE-group and 8 (7 beyond bed-rest day-30) in the RE-group. Fluid intake, urine output and axiallary temperature increased during bed-rest (p < .0001), though similarly in all groups (p > or = .17). Body weight changes differed between groups (p < .0001) with decreases in the CTR-group, marginal decreases in the RE-group and the RVE-group displaying significant decreases in body-weight beyond bed-rest day-51 only. In light of events and experiences of the current study, recommendations on various aspects of bed-rest methodology are also discussed.

Polyphony and performance: integrating the theatre into cinema's modernity

My research explores film’s nascent relationship to the late nineteenth century stage. It argues that the emergence of digital culture has seen a focus on the technological rather than performative history of film and new media. This means that what we accept as ‘the cinema’ often denies or elides the theatrical practices that were brought into the nascent media. My interest, in particular, is the narrative theatrical film before World War One. Particularly in Australia, which is credited with having ushered in the longer playing feature film format with the release of The Story of the Kelly Gang, these pre-teen years are fundamental to a proper understanding of our larger contribution to the global film industry.

Dynamic recrystallization behaviors of a Mg-4Y-2Nd-0.2Zn-0.5Zr alloy and the resultant mechanical properties after hot compression

The development behaviors of ultrafine grains (UFGs) due to continuous dynamic recrystallization (cDRX) were investigated in hot compression of a Mg-4Y-2Nd-0.2Zn-0.5Zr alloy pretreated in solution and subsequently peak-aging. In the aging sample containing statically precipitated particles (SPPs), the occurrence of cDRX starts to take place at medium to high strains, and finally a stable size of UFGs are fully developed in a whole volume. In the as-solution sample with no SPPs, by contrast, the size of UFGs evolved increases rapidly at lower strains, slowly at medium strains and then finally shows a bimodal distribution in high strain. In the latter, smaller grains accompanying with an incomplete formation of UFGs are developed by any effect of dynamically precipitated particles (DPPs). The microtexture evolved is effectively randomized in the regions of UFGs, leading to the formation of a weaker texture. The tensile elongation of the aging sample, with SPPs and fully developed UFGs, was around 17.4%. This was much higher than that of the as-solution one, with no SPPs and incompletely developed UFGs, that was 11.8%, which might result from the more randomized texture due to fully developed UFGs.

Gilles Deleuze and early cinema: The modernity of the emancipated time

Although the transition from the movement-image to the time-image is among the most commented-upon Deleuzian problems, Gilles Deleuze neglected the previous transition from ‘images in movement’ to the first regime of the movement-images. As my approach will be transhistorical, focusing especially on early silent movies and recently expanded cinema through early moving images (Lumière Brothers) and 1970s structural films (Malcolm Le Grice), I will reflect on how we can think time and moving images outside of this closed Deleuzian movement-image/time-image conceptual framework. In other words, we can ask: how can we expand this conceptual framework? Drawing on David Martin-Jones’ ‘attraction-image’, my aim is to explore the role of early cinema and the reasons for Gilles Deleuze’s own historical and technical (mis)judgement of early silent cinema. In this sense, the emergent studies on the history of early silent movies, and the growing field of Deleuzian studies on film, together have an important role on the philosophical and historiographical analysis of film’s expression of time and modernity.