Integrating the human factor into the holistic understanding of sustainability

Using a number of literary sources with sustainable design and architectural phenomenology as their foundation, this paper uses Integral theory, drawing on the writings of Ken Wilber and Mark DeKay to justify the importance of human architectural experience in the holistic view of sustainable design. The literature critiques modern practices and ideas of sustainability and identifies factors that contribute towards the success of sustainable building. It explores the implications for an Integral approach to sustainable design and then uses it to analyse the relationships that exist between the objective and the subjective value spheres of Integral theory.

General synthesis of two-dimensional patterned conducting polymer-nanobowl sheet via chemical polymerization

A general method for the generation of two-dimensional (2D) ordered, large-area, and liftable conducting polymer-nanobowl sheet has been demonstrated via chemical polymerization for the first time. The sheet is made using the monolayer self-assembled from polystyrene (PS) spheres at the aqueous/air interface as template, followed by depositing conducting polymer on the part of PS monolayer submerging in the aqueous phase via chemical polymerization, and core extraction. During the process of polymerization, no substrate is required, which caused the as-prepared patterned conducting polymer sheet can be easily lifted-off and deposited, in full size, on any flat substrate. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrum were used to characterize the products

[Al4(OH)2(OCH3)4(H2N-bdc)3]⋅x H2O: A 12-connected porous metal–organic framework with an unprecedented aluminum-containing brick

A new stable aluminum aminoterephthalate system contains octameric building blocks that are connected by organic linkers to form a 12-connected net (see picture). The structure adopts a cubic centered packing motive in which octameric units replace individual atoms, thus forming distorted octahedral (red sphere) and tetrahedral cages (green spheres) with effective accessible diameters of 1 and 0.45 nm, respectively

Excellent electrochemical performance of LiFe0.4Mn0.6PO4 microspheres produced using a double carbon coating process

Composite LiFe0.4Mn0.6PO4/C microspheres are considered advanced cathode materials for electric vehicles and other high-energy density applications due to their advantages of high energy density and excellent cycling stability. LiFe0.4Mn0.6PO4/C microspheres have been produced using a double carbon coating process employing traditional industrial techniques (ball milling, spray-drying and annealing). The obtained LiFe0.4Mn0.6PO4 microspheres exhibit a high discharge capacity of around 166 mA h g-1 at 0.1 C and excellent rate capabilities of 132, 103, and 72 mA h g-1 at 5, 10, and 20 C, respectively. A reversible capacity of about 152 mA h g-1 after 500 cycles at a current density of 1 C indicates an outstanding cycling stability. The excellent electrochemical performance is attributed to the micrometer-sized spheres of double carbon-coated LiFe0.4Mn0.6PO4 nanoparticles with improved electric conductivity and higher Li ion diffusion coefficients, ensuring full redox reactions of all nanoparticles. The results show that the advanced high-energy density cathode materials can be produced using existing industry techniques.

Fabrication of high specificity hollow mesoporous silica nanoparticles assisted by Eudragit for targeted drug delivery.

Hollow mesoporous silica nanoparticles (HMSNs) are one of the most promising carriers for effective drug delivery due to their large surface area, high volume for drug loading and excellent biocompatibility. However, the non-ionic surfactant templated HMSNs often have a broad size distribution and a defective mesoporous structure because of the difficulties involved in controlling the formation and organization of micelles for the growth of silica framework. In this paper, a novel "Eudragit assisted" strategy has been developed to fabricate HMSNs by utilising the Eudragit nanoparticles as cores and to assist in the self-assembly of micelle organisation. Highly dispersed mesoporous silica spheres with intact hollow interiors and through pores on the shell were fabricated. The HMSNs have a high surface area (670m(2)/g), small diameter (120nm) and uniform pore size (2.5nm) that facilitated the effective encapsulation of 5-fluorouracil within HMSNs, achieving a high loading capacity of 194.5mg(5-FU)/g(HMSNs). The HMSNs were non-cytotoxic to colorectal cancer cells SW480 and can be bioconjugated with Epidermal Growth Factor (EGF) for efficient and specific cell internalization. The high specificity and excellent targeting performance of EGF grafted HMSNs have demonstrated that they can become potential intracellular drug delivery vehicles for colorectal cancers via EGF-EGFR interaction.

Template-free synthesis of functional 3D BN architecture for removal of dyes from water.

Three-dimensional (3D) architectures are of interest in applications in electronics, catalysis devices, sensors and adsorption materials. However, it is still a challenge to fabricate 3D BN architectures by a simple method. Here, we report the direct synthesis of 3D BN architectures by a simple thermal treatment process. A 3D BN architecture consists of an interconnected flexible network of nanosheets. The typical nitrogen adsorption/desorption results demonstrate that the specific surface area for the as-prepared samples is up to 1156 m(2) g(-1), and the total pore volume is about 1.17 cm(3) g(-1). The 3D BN architecture displays very high adsorption rates and large capacities for organic dyes in water without any other additives due to its low densities, high resistance to oxidation, good chemical inertness and high surface area. Importantly, 88% of the starting adsorption capacity is maintained after 15 cycles. These results indicate that the 3D BN architecture is potential environmental materials for water purification and treatment.

Cultural influence on peer relationships in early childhood settings

This paper presents a cultural perspective of young children’s peer relationships. Through reporting on a study of a group of Chinese immigrant children’s learning experiences with peers of the same cultural backgrounds in English dominant early childhood contexts, it reveals that the sharing of a similar cultural heritage may play an important role in the development of relationships for young children in diverse cultural learning communities. This paper is written from the perspectives of socioculture and culture theory. Central to my argument is the contextual dimension of culture. This dimension provides an explanatory structure for understanding immigrant children’s formation of home-culture oriented peer togetherness and peer culture within the paradigm of English dominant spheres. My position is to recognize that the children’s responses to peers are both subject to the influences of their home cultures, and the relationship between different cultures. The notion of cultural relationship is important in this paper, leading to the suggestion that early childhood settings should create an enabling and empowering sociocultural milieu that provides immigrant children with opportunities for intercultural ways of learning and development.

Tunable dual-stimuli response of a microgel composite consisting of reduced graphene oxide nanoparticles and poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) hydrogel microspheres

A type of photo- and thermo-responsive composite microsphere composed of reduced graphene oxide nanoparticles and poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (rGO@pNIPAM) is successfully fabricated by a facile solution mixing method. Due to the high optical absorbance and thermal conduction of rGO, the composite microspheres are endowed with the new property of photo-response, in addition to the intrinsic thermally sensitive property of pNIPAM. This new ability undoubtedly enlarges the scope of applications of the microgel spheres. Furthermore, through controlling the rGO content in the composite, the photo- and thermo-sensitivity of the composite can be effectively modulated. That is, with a lower rGO content (≤32% by weight), the composite microspheres perform only thermally induced changes, such as volume contraction (by ∼45% in diameter) and drug release, when crossing the lower critical solution temperature of pNIPAM. With a higher rGO content (∼47.5%), both temperature and light irradiation can trigger changes in the composite. However, when the rGO content is increased to around 64.5%, the thermo-responsivity of the composite disappears, and the spheres exhibit only photo-induced drug release. With a further increase in rGO content, the environmentally responsive ability of the microspheres vanishes. This journal is © the Partner Organisations 2014.

The new wilderness: A practice-led model for arts based enquiry

The New Wilderness is a practice-led, multidisciplinary arts project first piloted by artists, writers, teachers and academics from Geelong, Deakin University and Courthouse ARTS Centre in 2013. In a series of workshops run by artists, and working to specific themes, the project provided a platform for participants to explore and respond creatively to change in the community; it culminated in a large-scale installation at Courthouse ARTS Centre’s main gallery. Our paper positions the project as a able to cut across convention, empowering young artists to respond to ‘big questions’ of relevance to the changing material, spatial and social relations within their communities. In questioning and seeking to transform communities into sustainable media, economic, environmental and social ecologies, this emergent model begins with a localised focus, which is designed to travel across time and place, and pedagogical frameworks. The paper positions Geelong as a community under radical transformation in its economic foundations and demographics. As artists and academics living and working in the region we see it as an experimental ground for investigations into a series of provocations that mirror the shape of the paper we intend to give. The provocations, as outlined in the workshops, might also be envisaged as new relations to:Object – From consumable to unusable to play. In revisiting the first iteration of The New wilderness in 2013 we discuss the ‘superfictional’ (Hill, 2000) enquiry that participants were asked to engage with. Its premise described Geelong as an abandoned, post-apocalyptic site. Participants were asked to imagine themselves as a group of future explorers and excavate objects from the city’s old tip. In unearthing their choices and re-presenting the objects in the gallery the participant was prompted to analyse site, situation, object and process as phenomena for ‘being’ or ‘telling stories’, providing insights into wider realms of cultural experience (Ellis, Adams and Bochner, 2010). Parallel to this ‘autoethnographic’ reflection our paper uses the philosopher Giorgio Agamben’s analysis of consumer and material culture. He traces the subject’s relation to objects from use-value, to exchange-value and in the era of extreme capitalism, to pure exhibition-value. He searches for ways that the objects produced in our material culture can be ‘profaned’ (Agamben, 2007). Space – From the material to the spatial to the situation. We are interested in how objects and the practices they elicit can be ‘profaned’ by their situation (Agamben, 2007; Wark, 2103). To profane, according to Agamben, is to open up the possibility that the object loses its exhibition-value to ‘a special form of negligence’ (Agamben). He uses the example of the child’s ability to insinuate any object into a new logic of play (Agamben). Like the objects excavated for The New Wilderness they could be from a variety of spheres – business, household, industry, health etc… The child, like the artist, reconstitutes, reorders and assembles new relations between things. In reflecting on the first New Wilderness project the paper correlates the creative response of the participant (student, child, artist) with the occupier. The Occupy Movement, which took up residence in many of the world’s cities’ financial districts in 2011, used a number of strategies commensurate with both Agamben’s notion of profanation and McKenzie Wark’s reading of the Situationist International’s use of détournement - as a strategy that releases objects and subjects back into the field of play (Wark, 2013). The field was taken by the occupy movement to be the space in which they occupied – capitalism, its logic and its practices, were, for a short time, redundant in the occupied field. The New Wilderness conceptualises the city as a localised field, from which its discarded objects can be ‘profaned’ or, repurposed, to reflect on shared histories, responsibilities, pedagogies and future action. Subject: self/other– As much as we propose New Wilderness to be a pedagogical initiative we see it as personal, critical and political. In the themed workshops, designed to elicit personal responses to the object and the site, which culminated in a multi-disciplinary installation, performance and/or text based work, participants were encouraged to think critically, and importantly, collectively. Through the four workshops run in the first iteration of the project participants were asked to re-consider their material value-systems, much as the occupy movement was trying to do, and like the occupiers, participants were empowered to be agents of change. Our paper reflects on the practical outcomes and the conceptual, political and pedagogical strategies embedded in The New Wilderness project. The paper affords us the additional opportunity to imagine a life for it in other geographical, socio-economic and educational situations. Merinda Kelly and Cameron Bishop, 2013Bio: Merinda Kelly is a sculptor and installation artist, educator and PhD student at Deakin University. Her research interests include Visual Culture, Practice Led Research, the Ontology of Art, and Autoethnography. Her most recent work includes the Pop Archaeology' and the Globo-Touro Projects.Bio: Dr Cameron Bishop is an artist and academic working in Visual Arts at Deakin University. He exhibits regularly and has written a number of journal articles and book chapters. His research has focused on the philosophical and postcolonial dimensions of space and subjectivity and more recently has evolved into an active interest in strategic interventions into space and practice.