Socioecology Research Today

In commemoration of Earth Day, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) named the top ten greenest buildings in America. The AIA says that buildings on the list “make a positive contribution to their communities, improve comfort for building occupants and reduce environmental impacts”.Check out this year’s winners to see their novel strategies for creating sustainable [...]

At the moment, the widespread use of renewable energy in buildings is limited by its intrinsic discontinuity: consequently integration of plants with energy storage systems could represent an efficient solution to the problem. Within this frame, hydrogen has shown to be particularly fit in order to be used as an energetic carrier.In this aim, in [...]

A human being spends approximately one-third of his/her life in sleep. Sleep can help people overcome tiredness, and is very important to one’s memory. With the gradual understanding of the influence of thermal parameters in a sleeping environment on the quality of sleep, different thermal environmental control approaches, such as electric blankets, space heating for [...]

This article reports an innovative integrated system utilizing solar energy as power for decentralized wastewater treatment, which consists of an oxidation ditch with double channels and a photovoltaic (PV) system without a storage battery. Because the system operates without a storage battery, which can reduce the cost of the PV system, the solar radiation intensity [...]

The new millennium has marked an increasing interest in citizens as energy end-users. While much hope has been placed on more active energy users, it has remained less clear what citizens can and are willing to do. We charted user inventions in heat pump and wood pellet burning systems in Finland in years 2005–2012. In [...]

This study investigates the performance of hybrid renewable microgeneration systems in load sharing application between a detached residential house and a small office building. Two renewable energy systems are investigated: a ground source heat pump (GSHP) system and a hybrid GSHP/fuel cell (FC) system. The renewable systems performance is compared to a conventional system that [...]

Successful utilization of the latent heat energy storage system depends considerably on the thermal reliability and stability of the phase change materials (PCMs) used. Thermal stability of phase change material can be established by measuring the thermo-physical properties of the PCM after a number of repeated thermal cycles. A comprehensive knowledge of thermal stability of [...]

Several renewable and (claimed) sustainable energy sources have been introduced into the market during the last century in an attempt to battle pollution from fossil fuels. Especially biomass energy technologies have been under debate for their sustainability. A new biomass energy technology was introduced in 2008: the plant-microbial fuel cell (P-MFC). In this system, electricity [...]

Buildings can be effectively cooled by a bioinspired sweating-like action based on thermoresponsive hydrogels (PNIPAM), which press out their stored water when exceeding the lower critical solution temperature. The surface temperature is reduced by 15 °C compared to that of a conventional hydrogel (pHEMA) and by 25 °C compared to the bare ground. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/adma.201202574

Extensive living roof substrate design to promote storm-water management while balancing structural load and maintaining nonirrigated plant cover is investigated through linked laboratory and field experiments in Auckland, New Zealand. Setting quantifiable goals for the 2002 FLL guidelines and agronomic testing methods resulted in successful design of multiple nonproprietary substrates. Particle size distribution and quality [...]