Nanowire sensor response to reactive gas environment

The response of an originally developed catalytic sensor with a Nb2 O5 nanowire array at its outer surface to the varying density of O atoms is experimentally and numerically studied. This technique can be used to measure one order of magnitude lower densities of O atoms and achieve a stable linear response in a significantly broader pressure range compared to conventional catalytic probes with a flat surface. The nanostructured outer surface also acts as a thermal barrier against sensor overheating. This approach is generic and can be used for reactive species detection in other reactive gas environments.

Observations on the formation, growth and chemical composition of aerosols in an urban environment

The charge and chemical composition of ambient particles in an urban environment were determined using a Neutral Particle and Air Ion Spectrometer and an Aerodyne compact Time-Of-Flight Aerosol Mass Spectrometer. Particle formation and growth events were observed on 20 of the 36 days of sampling, with eight of these events classified as strong. During these events, peaks in the concentration of intermediate and large ions were followed by peaks in the concentration of ammonium and sulphate, which were not observed in the organic fraction. Comparison of days with and without particle formation events revealed that ammonium and sulphate were the dominant species on particle formation days while high concentrations of biomass burning OA inhibited particle growth. Analyses of the degree of particle neutralisation lead us to conclude that an excess of ammonium enabled particle formation and growth. In addition, the large ion concentration increased sharply during particle growth, suggesting that during nucleation the neutral gaseous species ammonia and sulphuric acid react to form ammonium and sulphate ions. Overall, we conclude that the mechanism of particle formation and growth involved ammonia and sulphuric acid, with limited input from organics.

Visualization of long-duration acoustic recordings of the environment

Acoustic recordings of the environment are an important aid to ecologists monitoring biodiversity and environmental health. However, rapid advances in recording technology, storage and computing make it possible to accumulate thousands of hours of recordings, of which, ecologists can only listen to a small fraction. The big-data challenge addressed in this paper is to visualize the content of long-duration audio recordings on multiple scales, from hours, days, months to years. The visualization should facilitate navigation and yield ecologically meaningful information. Our approach is to extract (at one minute resolution) acoustic indices which reflect content of ecological interest. An acoustic index is a statistic that summarizes some aspect of the distribution of acoustic energy in a recording. We combine indices to produce false-color images that reveal acoustic content and facilitate navigation through recordings that are months or even years in duration.

A hierarchical model of goal directed navigation selects trajectories in a visual environment

We have developed a Hierarchical Look-Ahead Trajectory Model (HiLAM) that incorporates the firing pattern of medial entorhinal grid cells in a planning circuit that includes interactions with hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. We show the model’s flexibility in representing large real world environments using odometry information obtained from challenging video sequences. We acquire the visual data from a camera mounted on a small tele-operated vehicle. The camera has a panoramic field of view with its focal point approximately 5 cm above the ground level, similar to what would be expected from a rat’s point of view. Using established algorithms for calculating perceptual speed from the apparent rate of visual change over time, we generate raw dead reckoning information which loses spatial fidelity over time due to error accumulation. We rectify the loss of fidelity by exploiting the loop-closure detection ability of a biologically inspired, robot navigation model termed RatSLAM. The rectified motion information serves as a velocity input to the HiLAM to encode the environment in the form of grid cell and place cell maps. Finally, we show goal directed path planning results of HiLAM in two different environments, an indoor square maze used in rodent experiments and an outdoor arena more than two orders of magnitude larger than the indoor maze. Together these results bridge for the first time the gap between higher fidelity bio-inspired navigation models (HiLAM) and more abstracted but highly functional bio-inspired robotic mapping systems (RatSLAM), and move from simulated environments into real-world studies in rodent-sized arenas and beyond.

Effect of plasma environment on synthesis of vertically aligned carbon nanofibers in plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition

We present a theoretical model describing a plasma-assisted growth of carbon nanofibers (CNFs), which involves two competing channels of carbon incorporation into stacked graphene sheets: via surface diffusion and through the bulk of the catalyst particle (on the top of the nanofiber), accounting for a range of ion- and radical-assisted processes on the catalyst surface. Using this model, it is found that at low surface temperatures, Ts, the CNF growth is indeed controlled by surface diffusion, thus quantifying the semiempirical conclusions of earlier experiments. On the other hand, both the surface and bulk diffusion channels provide a comparable supply of carbon atoms to the stacked graphene sheets at elevated synthesis temperatures. It is also shown that at low Ts, insufficient for effective catalytic precursor decomposition, the plasma ions play a key role in the production of carbon atoms on the catalyst surface. The model is used to compute the growth rates for the two extreme cases of thermal and plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition of CNFs. More importantly, these results quantify and explain a number of observations and semiempirical conclusions of earlier experiments.

The Habitual Rhythms of Becoming-Involved: Insights into Participation Experiences in Urban Spaces by Children with Diverse Mobility

This chapter reports on a study that reveals the essence of participation in urban spaces by ten children who live with various physical conditions: Muscular Dystrophy, Cerebral Palsy, and Autoimmune Rheumatic Diseases. These conditions affect muscle and movement differently resulting in diverse ways in which children move through space (personal mobility). The children at the time of the research were 9-12 years of age residing in South-east Queensland, Australia. The approach and methods selected for this study, interpretive phenomenological inquiry and grounded theory, were chosen for their capacity to capture the complexity and multiple interactions of the child’s urban living. The confronting and poignant accounts by children and their families of their experiences produced a new way of understanding the concept of participation, as a ‘journey of becoming involved.’ Their accounts of performing everyday routines (e.g. leaving home, getting in and out of the car, and entering places) in urban spaces (neighbourhood streets, schools, open spaces, shopping centres, and hospitals) revealed differences in the way settings were experienced. These differences were associated with the interplay between the body, space and context. Where interplays were problematic, explicit decisions about children’s involvement were made. These decisions were described in terms of ‘avoid going’, ‘pick and choose’, ‘discontinue’, ‘accept’, or ‘contest.’ What these decisions mean is some spaces are avoided, some journeys are discontinued, and some barriers encountered in journeys are normalised as everyday experiences, i.e. ‘tolerable discrimination’. These actions resulted in experiences of non-participation or partial–tokenistic participation. The key substantive contribution of the research lies in the identification of points in children’s journeys that shape participation experience. These points identify where future interventions in policy, programming and design can be made to make real and sustaining changes to lives of children and their families in geographies crucial to urban living.

Plasmonic Ag nanoparticles via environment-benign atmospheric microplasma electrochemistry

Atmospheric-pressure microplasma-assisted electrochemistry was used to synthesize Ag nanoparticles (NPs) for plasmonic applications. It is shown that the size and dispersion of the nanoparticles can be controlled by variation of the microplasma-assisted electrochemical process parameters such as electrolyte concentration and temperature. Moreover, Ag NP synthesis is also achieved in the absence of a stabilizer, with additional control over the dispersion and NP formation possible. As the microplasma directly reduces Ag ions in solution, the incorporation of toxic reducing agents into the electrolytic solution is unnecessary, making this an environmentally friendly fabrication technique with strong potential for the design and growth of plasmonic nanostructures for a variety of applications. These experiments therefore link microplasma-assisted electrochemical synthesis parameters with plasmonic characteristics.

Steady state genuine multipartite entanglement in harmonic oscillator ensembles with a common environment

Steady state entanglement in ensembles of harmonic oscillators with a common squeezed reservoir is studied. Under certain conditions the ensemble features genuine multipartite entanglement in the steady state. Several analytic results regarding the bipartite and multipartite entanglement properties of the system are derived. We also discuss a possible experimental implementation which may exhibit steady state genuine multipartite entanglement.

Jurisprudential Challenges to the Protection of the Natural Environment

Nature exists. Humans exist. The behaviour of one impacts upon the other. The behaviour of humans is governed by the artificial contrivance described as the law. While the law can in this way control the behaviour of humans and the impact that human behaviour has on nature, the behaviour of nature is governed – if at all- in accordance with nature’s own sets of values which are quintessentially a matter for nature. The relationship between nature and humans may be the object of rules of law, but traditional legal doctrine dictates that humans but not nature are the subjects of the rules of law. The jurisprudence of the earth – it would appear – seeks to equalise in the eyes of the law nature as part of the global environment and humans as part of the global environment. How might this be done?

Implementing a new genre of eHealth system in a reticent environment

This tutorial primarily focuses on the social aspects of implementing a novel eHealth systems called Accountable-eHealth (AeH) systems. The main focus of AeH systems is mitigating information privacy concerns whilst facilitating appropriate access to information for users, and is based on the principles of information accountability (IA).

Technology, Natural Resources and Economic Growth: Improving the Environment for a Greener Future

Description Through a combination of global data analysis and focused country level analysis, this timely book provides answers to the most pertinent country and industry specific questions defining the current relationship between technology, natural resources and economic growth. Contents Contents: Preface Part I: Global Analysis 1. Economic Growth and the Environment 2. Energy Substitution and Carbon Dioxide Emissions 3. Pollution, Natural Resources, and Economic Growth 4. Trade Openness and Environmental Quality 5. Environmental Productivity 6. Energy Price-induced Technological Change 7. Trade-induced Technological Change 8. Regional Economic Integration Part II: Country-Level Analysis 9. Emissions Trading in the United States 10. Increasing Returns to Pollution Abatement in the United States 11. Policy-induced Competitiveness in the United States 12. Trade Liberalization, Technology, and the Environment 13. Policy Implementation and its Effectiveness in China 14. Clean Technological Inventions in Japan 15. Intervention of Economic Policy and its Nonlinear Effects in Japan 16. The Next Emerging Giants: India and Africa 17. Conclusion Index Further information Through a combination of global data analysis and focused country level analysis, this timely book provides answers to the most pertinent country and industry specific questions defining the current relationship between technology, natural resources and economic growth. Shunsuke Managi takes a distinctive approach by focusing on the design and implementation of environmental regulations that encourage technological progress and, in doing so, looks at ways to ensure productivity improvements in the face of increasingly stringent environmental regulations and natural resource depletion. The findings in this important book demonstrate how successful environmental policies can contribute to efficiency by encouraging, rather than inhibiting, technological innovation. Technology, Natural Resources and Economic Growth will provide a valuable resource for a wide readership including postgraduate students, researchers, academics and policy makers working in the fields of environmental and ecological economics.

Environment and productivities in developed and developing countries : the case of carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide

We propose a productivity index for undesirable outputs such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions and measure it using data from 51 developed and developing countries over the period 1971-2000. About half of the countries exhibit the productivity growth. The changes in the productivity index are linked with their respective per capita income using a semi-parametric model. Our results show technological catch up of low-income countries. However, overall productivities both of SO2 and CO2 show somewhat different results.

Chinese economic development and the environment

Over the past two decades, China has become an economic powerhouse. However, as the world’s largest producer of CO2 emissions, the scale and seriousness of China’s environmental problems are clearly evident. This pioneering book provides an economic analysis of the significant environmental and energy problems facing China in the 21st century.