Beyond the technical: a snapshot of energy and buildings research

The past decade has witnessed a sharp increase in published research on energy and buildings. This paper takes stock of work in this area, with a particular focus on construction research and the analysis of non-technical dimensions. While there is widespread recognition as to the importance of non-technical dimensions, research tends to be limited to individualistic studies of occupants and occupant behavior. In contrast, publications in the mainstream social science literature display a broader range of interests, including policy developments, structural constraints on the diffusion and use of new technologies and the construction process itself. The growing interest of more generalist scholars in energy and buildings provides an opportunity for construction research to engage a wider audience. This would enrich the current research agenda, helping to address unanswered problems concerning the relatively weak impact of policy mechanisms and new technologies and the seeming recalcitrance of occupants. It would also help to promote the academic status of construction research as a field. This, in turn, depends on greater engagement with interpretivist types of analysis and theory building, thereby challenging deeply ingrained views on the nature and role of academic research in construction.

A socio-technical network approach to the adoption of low and zero carbon technologies in new housing

Housing in the UK accounts for 30.5% of all energy consumed and is responsible for 25% of all carbon emissions. The UK Government’s Code for Sustainable Homes requires all new homes to be zero carbon by 2016. The development and widespread diffusion of low and zero carbon (LZC) technologies is recognised as being a key solution for housing developers to deliver against this zero-carbon agenda. The innovation challenge to design and incorporate these technologies into housing developers’ standard design and production templates will usher in significant technical and commercial risks. In this paper we report early results from an ongoing Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council project looking at the innovation logic and trajectory of LZC technologies in new housing. The principal theoretical lens for the research is the socio-technical network approach which considers actors’ interests and interpretative flexibilities of technologies and how they negotiate and reproduce ‘acting spaces’ to shape, in this case, the selection and adoption of LZC technologies. The initial findings are revealing the form and operation of the technology networks around new housing developments as being very complex, involving a range of actors and viewpoints that vary for each housing development.

Simple and effective technical procedures for the packing and application of nanospray PicoFrit HPLC columns for proteomic analyses

A simple procedure was developed for packing PicoFrit HPLC columns with chromatographic stationary phase using a reservoir fabricated from standard laboratory HPLC fittings. Packed columns were mounted onto a stainless steel ultra-low volume precolumn filter assembly containing a 0.5-mu m pore size steel frit. This format provided a conduit for the application of the nanospray voltage and protected the column from obstruction by sample material. The system was characterised and operational performance assessed by analysis of a range of peptide standards (n = 9).

Technical Note: The normal quantile transformation and its application in a flood forecasting system.

The Normal Quantile Transform (NQT) has been used in many hydrological and meteorological applications in order to make the Cumulated Distribution Function (CDF) of the observed, simulated and forecast river discharge, water level or precipitation data Gaussian. It is also the heart of the meta-Gaussian model for assessing the total predictive uncertainty of the Hydrological Uncertainty Processor (HUP) developed by Krzysztofowicz. In the field of geo-statistics this transformation is better known as the Normal-Score Transform. In this paper some possible problems caused by small sample sizes when applying the NQT in flood forecasting systems will be discussed and a novel way to solve the problem will be outlined by combining extreme value analysis and non-parametric regression methods. The method will be illustrated by examples of hydrological stream-flow forecasts.

Theology and politics in Richard Hooker's thought

Although Richard Hooker’s private attitudes were clericalist and authoritarian, his constitutional theory subordinated clergymen to laymen and monarchy to parliamentary statute. This article explains why his political ideas were nonetheless appropriate to his presumed religious purposes. It notes a very intimate connection between his teleological conception of a law and his hostility towards conventional high Calvinist ideas about predestination. The most significant anomaly within his broadly Aristotelian world-view was his belief that politics is nothing but a means to cope with sin. This too can be linked to his religious ends, but it creates an ambiguity that made his doctrines usable by Locke.

Unwritten law in Hobbesian political thought

In Hobbesian terminology, ‘unwritten laws’ are natural laws enforced within a polity, by a non-sovereign judge, without some previous public promulgation. This article discusses the idea in the light of successive Hobbesian accounts of ‘law’ and ‘obligation’. Between De Cive and Leviathan, Hobbes dropped the idea that natural law is strictly speaking law, but he continued to believe unwritten laws must form a part of any legal system. He was unable to explain how such a law could claim a legal status. His loyalty to the notion, in spite of all the trouble that it caused, is a sign of his belief that moral knowledge is readily accessible to all.

Technical note: Organics-induced fluorescence in Raman studies of sulfuric acid aerosols

Fluorescence is a troublesome side effect in laboratory Raman studies on sulfuric acid solutions and aerosol particles. We performed experiments showing that organic matter induces fluorescence in H2SO4/H2O solutions. The intensity of the fluorescence signal appears to be almost independent of the concentration of the organic substances, but depends strongly on the sulfuric acid concentration. The ubiquity of organic substances in the atmosphere, their relatively high abundance, and the insensitivity of the fluorescence with respect to their concentrations will render most acidic natural aerosols subject to absorption and fluorescence, possibly influencing climate forcing. We show that, while fluorescence may in the future become a valuable tool of aerosol diagnostics, the concurrent absorption is too small to significantly affect the atmosphere's radiative balance.

Language and thought in bilinguals: the case of grammatical number and nonverbal classification preferences

Recent research shows that speakers of languages with obligatory plural marking (English) preferentially categorize objects based on common shape, whereas speakers of nonplural-marking classifier languages (Yucatec and Japanese) preferentially categorize objects based on common material. The current study extends that investigation to the domain of bilingualism. Japanese and English monolinguals, and Japanese–English bilinguals were asked to match novel objects based on either common shape or color. Results showed that English monolinguals selected shape significantly more than Japanese monolinguals, whereas the bilinguals shifted their cognitive preferences as a function of their second language proficiency. The implications of these findings for conceptual representation and cognitive processing in bilinguals are discussed.

Max Weber in the thought of Edward Shils (1910–1995) and Ernest Gellner (1925–1995): the paradox of two Weberian approaches to the understanding of nations and nationalism?

This article traces the paradoxical impact of Weber's oeuvre on two major scholars of nationalism, Ernest Gellner and Edward Shils. Both these scholars died in 1995, leaving behind a rich corpus of writings on the nation and nationalism, much of which was inspired by Max Weber. The paradox is that although neither scholar accepted Weber's sceptical attitude to the concept of ‘nation’, they both used his other major concepts, such as ‘rationality’, ‘disenchantment’, ‘unintended consequences’, the ‘ethic of responsibility’ and ‘charisma’, in their very analyses of the nation and nationalism. And they both saw, each in his own way, the nation and nationalism as constitutive elements of modern societies. However, the paradox ceases being a paradox if one sees the integration, by Shils and Gellner, of concepts of the nation and of nationalism in the analysis of modernity, as a development of Weber's ideas.