title: Additive manufacturing of hygromorphic structures using regenerated cellulose/PLA biocomposites

authors: Gauss, Christian

abstract: Three-dimensional printing technologies are at the forefront of the current industrial revolution, enabling the production of complex shapes using a wide range of materials without relying on large production facilities. Increasing it further, 4D printing is a new concept in which printed objects respond to environmental stimuli and change shape or other characteristics with time in a controlled and predicted manner. However, the development of bio-based material alternatives that can be integrated into a circular economy is limited if compared with other non-renewable polymers traditionally used for these applications. Bioderived and/or biodegradable thermoplastics reinforced with bioderived fibres have compelling attributes in this context; they can be recycled, can be used in smart materials (4D printing), and, if necessary, can biodegrade at the end of their life cycle, leaving no harmful waste in the environment. In this work, we demonstrate the potential of PLA-based biocomposites with high content of regenerated cellulose fibres (lyocell) for 3D printed structures produced by fused deposition modelling (FDM) that change shape in response to moisture (hygromorphic). The main mechanism involved in this behaviour is related to the anisotropic swelling of the cellulose fibres that are preferentially aligned in the composite during printing. Using a bi-layered architecture of passive and active layers, we developed different prototypes with 2D to 3D transformation capability triggered by moisture with a high degree of shape change.

text: Additive manufacturing of hygromorphic structures using regenerated cellulose/PLA biocomposites Three-dimensional printing technologies are at the forefront of the current industrial revolution, enabling the production of complex shapes using a wide range of materials without relying on large production facilities. Increasing it further, 4D printing is a new concept in which printed objects respond to environmental stimuli and change shape or other characteristics with time in a controlled and predicted manner. However, the development of bio-based material alternatives that can be integrated into a circular economy is limited if compared with other non-renewable polymers traditionally used for these applications. Bioderived and/or biodegradable thermoplastics reinforced with bioderived fibres have compelling attributes in this context; they can be recycled, can be used in smart materials (4D printing), and, if necessary, can biodegrade at the end of their life cycle, leaving no harmful waste in the environment. In this work, we demonstrate the potential of PLA-based biocomposites with high content of regenerated cellulose fibres (lyocell) for 3D printed structures produced by fused deposition modelling (FDM) that change shape in response to moisture (hygromorphic). The main mechanism involved in this behaviour is related to the anisotropic swelling of the cellulose fibres that are preferentially aligned in the composite during printing. Using a bi-layered architecture of passive and active layers, we developed different prototypes with 2D to 3D transformation capability triggered by moisture with a high degree of shape change.

year: 2022

title: "Never say never?": Heterosexual, bisexual, and lesbian women's accounts of being childfree.

authors: Hayfield, Nikki

subjects: gender roles

abstract: Feminist scholars have identified a “motherhood imperative” in Western cultures, when heterosexual women are understood to both want and to have children. However, social shifts have resulted in a decrease in pronatalism as well as an increase in social recognition of the parenting desires of same-sex parents. Despite a resurgence of interest in childfree identities, research to date has predominantly focused on heterosexual women’s explanations for being childfree and their experiences of marginalization. Our aim in the current study was to explore how childfree heterosexual, lesbian, bisexual, and queer women negotiate their childfree lives and identities in the context of their personal and social relationships within changing cultural contexts. Data from 23 interviews with women in the United Kingdom, who responded to a call for childfree participants, were thematically analyzed. We constructed two themes: (1) Never say never? Negotiating being childfree as ever precarious, which shows how women constructed being childfree as requiring constant revisiting and renegotiating to maintain and (2) An ordinary life: Constructing being childfree as rational and reasonable, in which we identify the rhetorical efforts of participants to establish their being childfree as an ordinary, reasonable, and rational position. We conclude that for these women, childfreedom was constantly in flux and that maintaining a positive childfree identity required considerable identity work in order to manage intimate personal relationships and wider friendships.

text: "Never say never?": Heterosexual, bisexual, and lesbian women's accounts of being childfree. Feminist scholars have identified a “motherhood imperative” in Western cultures, when heterosexual women are understood to both want and to have children. However, social shifts have resulted in a decrease in pronatalism as well as an increase in social recognition of the parenting desires of same-sex parents. Despite a resurgence of interest in childfree identities, research to date has predominantly focused on heterosexual women’s explanations for being childfree and their experiences of marginalization. Our aim in the current study was to explore how childfree heterosexual, lesbian, bisexual, and queer women negotiate their childfree lives and identities in the context of their personal and social relationships within changing cultural contexts. Data from 23 interviews with women in the United Kingdom, who responded to a call for childfree participants, were thematically analyzed. We constructed two themes: (1) Never say never? Negotiating being childfree as ever precarious, which shows how women constructed being childfree as requiring constant revisiting and renegotiating to maintain and (2) An ordinary life: Constructing being childfree as rational and reasonable, in which we identify the rhetorical efforts of participants to establish their being childfree as an ordinary, reasonable, and rational position. We conclude that for these women, childfreedom was constantly in flux and that maintaining a positive childfree identity required considerable identity work in order to manage intimate personal relationships and wider friendships.

year: 2019

title: Countering gentrification in Tāmaki Makarau: Towards a framework for urban environmental justice

authors: Terruhn, Jessica

abstract: This policy brief argues for urban policies that actively aim to end gentrification.

Gentrification is intimately tied to state-led processes of urban renewal. Though historically understood as the displacement of low-income households as an unfortunate byproduct of socioeconomic and demographic neighbourhood change, contemporary gentrification is constituted by profit-driven investment decisions that erase undervalued neighbourhoods and their communities in the name of urban renewal (variously referred to as redevelopment, regeneration, renaissance, or revitalisation).

These processes of gentrification fundamentally contribute to environmental injustice. At the same time as creating ‘zones of abundance’, neighbourhood regeneration projects simultaneously (re-)create ‘zones of neglect and sacrifice’, which are burdened with environmental risks. As low-income and ethnic minority households are more likely to either reside in or to be displaced into these neighbourhoods, they are disproportionately exposed to environmental risk factors.

Moreover, gentrification enables and legitimises the exclusion of marginalised communities in multiple ways: 1) it devalues existing places and their residents in favour of regeneration, 2) it displaces longtime residents from regenerated neighbourhoods because of increasing property values, and/or 3) it alienates longtime residents as neighbourhood aesthetics, amenities and services change and become unaffordable and/or irrelevant.

As gentrification contributes to low-income households’ experiences of precarity and severs community ties and place attachments, it generates significant costs to personal and community health and wellbeing as well as social cohesion. The recommendations articulated in this brief emphasise the importance of transformative policy solutions that actively counter gentrification.
These include:
• Equitable investment in urban infrastructure
• Prioritising affordable housing
• Ensuring accessible transportation
• Empowering local communities
• Implementing a Te Tiriti o Waitangi approach to policy development

text: Countering gentrification in Tāmaki Makarau: Towards a framework for urban environmental justice This policy brief argues for urban policies that actively aim to end gentrification.

Gentrification is intimately tied to state-led processes of urban renewal. Though historically understood as the displacement of low-income households as an unfortunate byproduct of socioeconomic and demographic neighbourhood change, contemporary gentrification is constituted by profit-driven investment decisions that erase undervalued neighbourhoods and their communities in the name of urban renewal (variously referred to as redevelopment, regeneration, renaissance, or revitalisation).

These processes of gentrification fundamentally contribute to environmental injustice. At the same time as creating ‘zones of abundance’, neighbourhood regeneration projects simultaneously (re-)create ‘zones of neglect and sacrifice’, which are burdened with environmental risks. As low-income and ethnic minority households are more likely to either reside in or to be displaced into these neighbourhoods, they are disproportionately exposed to environmental risk factors.

Moreover, gentrification enables and legitimises the exclusion of marginalised communities in multiple ways: 1) it devalues existing places and their residents in favour of regeneration, 2) it displaces longtime residents from regenerated neighbourhoods because of increasing property values, and/or 3) it alienates longtime residents as neighbourhood aesthetics, amenities and services change and become unaffordable and/or irrelevant.

As gentrification contributes to low-income households’ experiences of precarity and severs community ties and place attachments, it generates significant costs to personal and community health and wellbeing as well as social cohesion. The recommendations articulated in this brief emphasise the importance of transformative policy solutions that actively counter gentrification.
These include:
• Equitable investment in urban infrastructure
• Prioritising affordable housing
• Ensuring accessible transportation
• Empowering local communities
• Implementing a Te Tiriti o Waitangi approach to policy development

year: 2025