Saint-Gobain (United Kingdom)

Delivering access to sufficient food, energy and water resources to ensure human wellbeing is a major concern for governments worldwide. However, it is crucial to account for the 'nexus' of interactions between these natural resources and the consequent implications for human wellbeing. The private sector has a critical role in driving positive change towards more sustainable nexus management and could reap considerable benefits from collaboration with researchers to devise solutions to some of the foremost sustainability challenges of today. Yet opportunities are missed because the private sector is rarely involved in the formulation of deliverable research priorities. We convened senior research scientists and influential business leaders to collaboratively identify the top forty questions that, if answered, would best help companies understand and manage their food-energy-water-environment nexus dependencies and impacts. Codification of the top order nexus themes highlighted research priorities around development of pragmatic yet credible tools that allow businesses to incorporate nexus interactions into their decision-making; demonstration of the business case for more sustainable nexus management; identification of the most effective levers for behaviour change; and understanding incentives or circumstances that allow individuals and businesses to take a leadership stance. Greater investment in the complex but productive relations between the private sector and research community will create deeper and more meaningful collaboration and cooperation.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to determine whether noise is affected by psychological factors rather than simply by physical metrics. For example, personality type, age, perceived control and screening ability were explored, as well as the choice of primary workplace. Design/methodology/approach An online survey was conducted which resulted in 517 valid responses. The survey included the personality profiling along with questions related to noise and personal circumstances. The key noise metrics were perceived performance, ability to work, well-being and stress plus three noise indices: concentration, distraction and speech interference. Findings The survey revealed that personality type does affect noise perception, in particular extroversion and neuroticism. Perceived control, screening ability, age, workplace, design and focused work are also factors. Personal variables accounted for 25 per cent of the variance in the ability to carry out work, and for 40 per cent of the variance in concentration and speech interference. Research limitations/implications Whilst statistically significant differences were found for most of the psychological and personal variables, the size of effect was smaller than anticipated. This is likely because the survey was carried out across a range or workplaces, rather than in a laboratory, with a number of uncontrolled extraneous factors. Practical implications The research has resulted in the development of a design guidance document for controlling noise distractions based on more psychoacoustic, people-centred, principles than purely physical ones. Originality value Most acoustics research is conducted in the laboratory and focuses on the physical sound properties. This research took a psychoacoustic approach focusing more on psychological and personal factors, and was carried out in the real world.

International audience

The move towards the development and implementation of circular economy business models (CEBM) has recently been gaining traction among construction supply chain actors, captured by the opportunity to increase performance, encourage innovation, and decouple economic growth from virgin resource inputs. However, the current CEBM state-of-research in the construction sector focused mostly on sectoral, organisational, and building levels. To date, it remains unknown the extent of CEBM opportunities, challenges and enablers for specific construction products like plasterboards that can potentially unlock the circularity of the sector. As such, this study provides a comprehensive stakeholders’ perspective on the opportunities, challenges, and enablers for plasterboard CEBM. This research adopted a participatory research design employing a workshop approach subdivided into two tasks encompassing a pre-workshop questionnaire survey and an in-person workshop with purposively sampled 21 companies across the plasterboard supply chain which were represented by 27 senior managers in their respective companies. There was consensus among the participating stakeholders that a plasterboard CEBM potentially promote value creation, delivery and capture in a closed-loop system for gypsum waste. Some of the identified CEBM challenges included the difficulty of developing financial models that create and capture both environmental and social value, limited investments, and lack of data for plasterboard traceability. To address these challenges, the research participants indicated that improving collaboration, providing capital investments and informed plasterboard traceability are significant enablers to drive CEBM adoption. This research contributes to existing knowledge through the identification, classification, and periodisation of plasterboard CEBM opportunities and associated challenges and enablers.

The purpose of this paper was to evaluate the shrinkage behavior of a 316L molding feedstock. The methodology adopted a statistical approach (design of experiment) and a standard microshrinkage measurement approach. The statistical approach identified the mold temperature—parallel to the flow direction—and the combined effect of the holding and injection pressure—normal to the flow direction—as critical factors. In comparison with the polymer on which the feedstock was based, lower shrinkage values and fewer critical factors were observed. In conclusion, the lower shrinkage values were a consequence of the powder loading. The critical factors identified in the present work have found confirmation in the literature, except the absence of melt temperature between feedstock critical factors.

Nowadays healthcare facilities have to deal with unprecedented competition. Hospitals are transforming themselves into health centres, attracting not just patients but doctors and nursing staff as well. In this context, an environment that promotes and preserves health is assuming increasing importance in purely economic terms. In this respect, room acoustics are attracting increasing scrutiny from forward looking clients. While convincing evidence shows that the sound environment in hospitals has become worse over the years, studies are being carried out to find the right sound control measures for supportive healthcare design. In order to create an optimum Room Acoustic Comfort in rooms, it is important to consider a variety of different acoustic descriptors. These descriptors must match and facilitate the nurses' ability to concentrate, reduce stress for patients, make speech clearer while performing surgery etc. In this process it is important to consider the people (patient or staff), what they do (the activity) and what room they are in. Today, when designing ordinary rooms from an acoustic perspective, mainly reverberation time (T 20 ) is used -both in practice but also in building regulations and standards. However, subjective experience is not always reflected by measuring only this parameter. We suggest a "selection" of acoustic descriptors for the respective room types. Studies will be highlighted to demonstrate the use of four human attributes; reverberance, speech clarity, strength and spatial decay for several room types within healthcare facilities.