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An effective and just industrial transition is necessary both to mitigate climate change and protect jobs, and as a precursor to enable other sectors to decarbonise. Activity is at an early stage and examples of successful sector-wide interventions to decarbonise industry do not yet exist. Governments of industrialised countries are beginning to develop policy and provide funding to support deployment of carbon capture and low-carbon hydrogen infrastructures into high-emitting industrial clusters, but options for sites outside of clusters, denoted here as ‘dispersed sites’, are also required. This paper takes a mixed methods approach to provide the first analysis of the issues facing dispersed industrial sites on their route to decarbonisation and to suggest solutions to the challenges they face. Using the UK as a case study, it first characterises dispersed sites in terms of location, emissions released, sectors involved, and size of companies affected. It then shows how these features mean that simply expanding the geographical scope of the present UK decarbonisation strategy, which focuses on the provision of carbon capture and low-carbon hydrogen, would face a number of challenges and so will need to be broadened to include a wider range of abatement options and other considerations to meet the needs of dispersed sites. While the solutions for each place will be different, these are likely to include some combination of the expansion of shared infrastructure, the development of local zero-carbon hubs, research into a wider range of novel abatement technologies and facilitating local participation in energy planning. The paper concludes with a discussion of remaining knowledge gaps before outlining how its findings might apply to industrial decarbonisation strategies in other countries.

Reducing industrial emissions to achieve net-zero targets by the middle of the century will require profound and sustained changes to how energy intensive industries operate. Preliminary activity is now underway, with governments of several developed economies starting to implement policy and providing funding to support the deployment of low carbon infrastructure into high emitting industrial clusters. While clusters appear to offer the economies of scale and institutional capacity needed to kick-start the industrial transition, to date there has been little systematic assessment of the factors that may influence the success of these initiatives. Drawing from academic and grey literature, this paper presents a rapid evidence assessment of the approaches being used to drive the development of low carbon industrial clusters internationally. Many projects are still at the scoping stage, but it is apparent that current initiatives focus on the deployment of carbon capture technologies, alongside hydrogen as a future secondary revenue stream. This model of decarbonisation funnels investment into large coastal clusters with access to low carbon electricity and tends to obscure questions about the integration of these technologies with other decarbonisation interventions, such as material efficiency and electrification. The technology focus also omits the importance that a favourable location and shared history and culture appears to have played in helping progress the most advanced initiatives; factors that cannot be easily replicated elsewhere. If clusters are to kick-start the low-carbon industrial transition, then greater attention is needed to the social and political dimensions of this process and to a broader range of decarbonisation interventions and cluster types than represented by current projects.

•Time-dependent tariffs with distributed electricity storage are investigated.•A stochastic energy demand model is used within Monte Carlo analysis.•Home batteries operating on time-dependent tariffs cause little peak shaving.•Simultaneous overnight charging can even cause increases in peak demands.•Staggering times of off-peak bands has limited effect on such rebound peaks.

•Potential peak shaving using distributed electricity storage is investigated.•An algorithm for finding the maximum possible peak shaving has been developed.•2 kWh of battery storage per household can halve peak demands.•With 3 kW PV per house, 4.5 kWh of batteries can keep peak flows at current levels.•100% switch to heat pumps is achievable with 3 kWh of battery storage per house.

•The MARKAL energy model has had significant influence on UK energy policy in recent years.•MARKAL's influence derives from three inter-related factors.•Adaptation to changing images of the energy-climate problem.•Connection of different communities with shared interests (i.e. a boundary object).•A technological focus, suiting prevailing conceptions of climate mitigation policy.

We prove the conjecture formulated in Litvak and Ejov (2009), namely, that the trace of the fundamental matrix of a singularly perturbed Markov chain that corresponds to a stochastic policy feasible for a given graph is minimised at policies corresponding to Hamiltonian cycles.

Recently, there has been considerable interest in the calculation of decay rates for models that can be viewed as quasi-birth-and-death (QBD) processes with infinitely many phases. In this paper we make a contribution to this endeavour by considering some classes of models in which the transition function is not homogeneous in the phase direction. We characterize the range of decay rates that are compatible with the dynamics of the process away from the boundary. In many cases, these rates can be attained by changing the transition structure of the QBD process at level 0. Our approach, which relies on the use of orthogonal polynomials, is an extension of that in Motyer and Taylor (2006) for the case where the generator has homogeneous blocks.

A model system for the exploration of nucleophilic substitution at a pentacoordinate silicon centre is reported. The degenerate nucleophilic exchange of free N‐methylimidazole (NMI) with coordinated NMI in a chiral pentacoordinate silicon compound, 4, has been studied by dynamic NMR spectroscopy. In 4the axial ligands are N‐methylimidazole and an intramolecularly‐coordinated and chelating oxygen atom of an amido group. The equatorial ligands are N‐CH2, Ph and Me. Two competing mechanisms for the nucleophilic substitution at silicon have been distinguished from the data. One mechanism takes place with retention of configuration at silicon and is zeroth order in added nucleophile. This is interpreted as involving rate limiting dissociation of the N‐methylimidazole followed by rapid re‐association of another NMI molecule. The other mechanism takes place with both inversion and retention of configuration at silicon but is also of zeroth order in added nucleophile. A mechanism for this reaction in which the O‐Si coordination is lost in the rate‐determining step is consistent with the data. In this particular example there is no evidence for a mechanism in which pentacoordinate silicon is attacked to give a hexacoordinate intermediate or transition state.

We consider the class of level-independent quasi-birth-and-death (QBD) processes that have countably many phases and generator matrices with tridiagonal blocks that are themselves tridiagonal and phase independent. We derive simple conditions for possible decay rates of the stationary distribution of the ‘level’ process. It may be possible to obtain decay rates satisfying these conditions by varying only the transition structure at level 0. Our results generalize those of Kroese, Scheinhardt, and Taylor, who studied in detail a particular example, the tandem Jackson network, from the class of QBD processes studied here. The conditions derived here are applied to three practical examples.

This article investigates how certain doctoral practices come to count as scandalous and with what effects on universities. To do so, it engages with a number of recent media allegations that relate to doctoral practice in Australia and elsewhere. The analysis of these allegations is developed in terms of three broad categories, namely allegations of silliness in relation to thesis content, allegations of softness in relation to entry, rigour and assessment, and allegations of suspect conduct and/or credentials. The impact of such allegations on university governance is then addressed.

The article discusses pertinent issues concerning the implementation of online learning models in the context of higher education in Australia. These concerns include the quality of education offered, the notions of flexible learning and delivery, and the varying roles of staff and students as they acquire novel pedagogies. The author explores the convergence of various cultural approaches for online learning and on-campus learning. Furthermore, he provides perspective on the sense of orientation among Australian students.

The synthesis of T8silsesquioxane cages from trialkoxysilanes using tetra n-butylammonium fluoride is described. The yields are in the range 20–95, which is a great improvement on other literature routes. This methodology enables a wide range of functionalised T8cages to be prepared. The X-ray crystal structures of three new T8cages, octacyclopentylsilsesquioxane, octaisobutylsilsesquioxane and octa4-carboxymethyl-3,3-dimethylbutylsilsesquioxane are also reported.

The synthesis of T₈ silsesquioxane cages from trialkoxysilanes using tetra n-butylammonium fluoride is described. The yields are in the range 20–95%, which is a great improvement on other literature routes. This methodology enables a wide range of functionalised T₈ cages to be prepared. The X-ray crystal structures of three new T₈ cages, octacyclopentylsilsesquioxane, octaisobutylsilsesquioxane and octa(4-carboxymethyl-3,3-dimethylbutyl)silsesquioxane are also reported.

This paper examines how risk management is reworking the doctoral supervisor/candidate relationship. We argue that a larger and more diverse population of doctoral students means special challenges for universities worldwide in managing doctoral programs to optimise their productivity and minimise the risk of failure, costliness and/or litigation. An effect of this is that professional and personal relationships in universities, as in many other public and private institutions, are being reshaped in order to be more closely aligned with risk minimisation policy directives and strategies. To understand what effects such reshaping is having on doctoral education, we bring together anthropological theorising of risk with pedagogical theorising of power and identity in education contexts. This theoretical cross-over between anthropology and education situates the pedagogic work of doctoral training within a culturally constituted order of professional care and risk management. We utilise this framework to interrogate "soft marking" as a specific domain in which risk minimisation is producing new relational identities for both supervisors and students involved in doctoral studies programs.

Reaction of iodosobenzene and trimethylsilyl chlorosulfonate followed by removal of the solvent and trimethylchlorosilane gives phenyliodosulfate. This can be used without further purification to prepare cyclic sulfates from alkenes, including vinylsilanes. Previous results have shown that if the trimethylchlorosilane is not removed, sultones are formed and a possible explanation of this behaviour is given.Key words: silicon, vinylsilanes, cyclic sulfate, phenyliodosulfate.

The development of online and virtual teaching and learning environments to augment formal face-to-face environments raises questions about the way the new communication and information technologies (CITs) are being incorporated into the on-campus environment. More importantly, this development challenges the meaning of the on-campus student learning experience. The new CITs require institutions, teachers and researchers to reconsider the relationship of the physical setting to the student learning experience. This paper highlights examples of recent developments of new learning environments which have been enhanced by the contribution of educational developers at several Australian universities. It also proposes a set of pedagogically informed principles to guide the development of on-campus teaching and learning environments which may feature the use of CITs.

Halodimethylsilylmethyl derivatives of 2-thiopyridones have been prepared. The N–CH₂ isomer is favoured with the 6-methylthiopyridone. ¹³C and ²⁹Si chemical shifts have been used to calculate the extent of sulfur–silicon bond formation and the extent of pentacoordination. The results are consistent with the oxygen analogues and reveal that as expected sulfur is a poorer nucleophile than oxygen. The unsubstituted thiopyridone and the 5-trifluoromethyl derivative favour the S–CH₂ isomer. Again the mapping of nucleophilic substitution by nitrogen is in line with sulfur and oxygen nucleophiles, but in this series nitrogen is a poorer nucleophile than expected. The results are discussed in terms of steric strain, the preferences for alkylation of the pyridones and the bond strength of coordination to silicon.

We introduce Parrondo's paradox that involves games of chance. We consider two fair games, A and B, both of which can be made to lose by changing a biasing parameter. An apparently paradoxical situation arises when the two games are played in any alternating order. A winning expectation is produced, even though both games A and B are losing when we play them individually. We develop an explanation of the phenomenon in terms of a Brownian ratchet model, and also develop a mathematical analysis using discrete–time Markov chains. From the analysis we investigate the range of parameter values for which Parrondo's paradox exists.

The reaction of trimethylsilylsulfonyl chloride with iodosobenzene at −78°C generates sulfur trioxide, or a sulfur trioxide precursor that reacts with alkenes to give sultones in good yield. This provides a simple method of preparing sulfur trioxide in situ and avoids the presence of Lewis bases.

A novel method for performing structure correlations in solution is described. Examination of how the ¹³C chemical shifts of the ring carbons of substituted 2-pyridones change on complexation of the oxygen with silicon has enabled the % Si–O bond formation to be determined in solution for a number of pentacoordinate silicon species with 2-pyridones as ligands. The % pentacoordination in these complexes has been determined from the ²⁹Si chemical shift using model compounds for the tetracoordinate and pentacoordinate limiting cases. Correlation of the % Si–O bond formation with % pentacoordination enables the pathway for substitution at silicon to be mapped in solution. The generality of these techniques is examined using a series of related aromatic ligands.

In this paper, we present a general scheme with which to view reduced load approximations in loss networks. We use notation motivated by stochastic Petri net (SPN) representations of such models and a technique similar to that described by Ciardo and Trivedi for general SPNs. Previous reduced load approximations have involved link independence assumptions. In our method, we assume independence between sets of links rather than between themselves. Our independence assumptions are thus less drastic than those that have been made previously and better results can be expected. Several examples are given in this context.

The authors critique the increasingly technologized teaching and learning environment of higher education. They argue that fresh pedagogical understandings are needed to inform thinking about instructional design. While the imperative to use communication technologies to increase learner access is laudable, the question of "access to what?" should also be addressed in all of its complexity. Disparate terrains of new literature about teaching and learning, technology and corporeality can bring fresh perspectives to bear on the nature of pedagogical work. However, such literatures are rarely brought together. In this article, the authors work across aspects of learning theory, critical theory, and poststructuralism to explore the question, "access to what?" In so doing, they raise important questions about the embodied nature of teaching and learning and the potential of both "embodied" and "disembodied" teaching to produce and counter marginalization. The argument is that all decisions about the appropriateness of particular pedagogical practices must engage with such questions.

A number of optically active α,β-epoxysilanes and silylaminoalcohols have been prepared from the corresponding chiral diols in high enantiomeric excess.

We introduce a batch service discipline, called assemble-transfer batch service,for continuous-time open queueing networks with batch movements. Under this service discipline a requested number of customers is simultaneously served at a node, and transferred to another node as, possibly, a batch of different size, if there are sufficient customers there; the node is emptied otherwise. We assume a Markovian setting for the arrival process, service times and routing, where batch sizes are generally distributed.Under the assumption that extra batches arrive while nodes are empty, and under a stability condition, it is shown that the stationary distribution of the queue length has a geometric product form over the nodes if and only if certain conditions are satisfied for the extra arrivals. This gives a new class of queueing networks which have tractable stationary distributions, and simultaneously shows that the product form provides a stochastic upper bound for the stationary distribution of the corresponding queueing network without the extra arrivals.

Viral spread is a complicated function of biological properties, the environment, preventative measures such as sanitation and masks, and the rate at which individuals come within physical proximity. It is these last two elements that governments can control through social-distancing directives. However, infection measurements are almost always delayed, making real-time estimation nearly impossible. Safe Blues is one way of addressing the problem caused by this time lag via online measurements combined with machine learning methods that exploit the relationship between counts of multiple forms of the Safe Blues strands and the progress of the actual epidemic. The Safe Blues protocols and techniques have been developed together with an experimental minimal viable product, presented as an app on Android devices with a server backend. Following initial exploration via simulation experiments, we are now preparing for a university-wide experiment of Safe Blues.

•Current UK deployment of thermal energy storage is studied•Sociotechnical frameworks are used to explore development and prospects•Short- and long-term heat storage helps to meet seasonal peaks and balance grid•Technology development is intertwined with national and local policy and governance•New business models and alternative forms of value can help deployment

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Hexasilsesquioxane cages T6 have been prepared from a range of alkyl and aryl trichlorosilanes using a “non aqueous” hydrolysis with dimethyl sulfoxide.

Hexasilsesquioxane cages (T₆) have been prepared from a range of alkyl and aryl trichlorosilanes using a “non aqueous” hydrolysis with dimethyl sulfoxide.

Careful hydrolysis of a pentacoordinate chlorosilane gives a pentacoordinate protonated silanol that resembles the intermediate in the aqueous hydrolysis of silanes.

Report on ‘The Virtual University?’ Symposium Melbourne, Australia

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