Encouraging water-saving behavior during a "Moment of Change": the efficacy of implementation intentions on water conservation during the transition to university.

Water saving behavior is of substantial importance in climate change mitigation and resilience, including reducing time spent in the shower. However, water use is, for many, a strong habit, and, as such, incorporating new water saving behaviors into one's domestic routines may be unsuccessful. In this study, we consider the extent to which a composite behavior change intervention (of water-saving information, implementation intention formation, and monitoring using a shower timer) is effective in reducing the domestic water consumption of new university students who have recently moved into university accommodation.

Learning agile soccer skills for a bipedal robot with deep reinforcement learning.

We investigated whether deep reinforcement learning (deep RL) is able to synthesize sophisticated and safe movement skills for a low-cost, miniature humanoid robot that can be composed into complex behavioral strategies. We used deep RL to train a humanoid robot to play a simplified one-versus-one soccer game. The resulting agent exhibits robust and dynamic movement skills, such as rapid fall recovery, walking, turning, and kicking, and it transitions between them in a smooth and efficient manner.

Adsorption of Diclofenac and PFBS on a Hair Keratin Dimer.

Environmental pollution by man-made toxic and persistent organic compounds, found throughout the world in surface and groundwater, has various negative effects on aquatic life systems and even humans. Therefore, it is important to develop and improve water treatment technologies capable of removing such substances from wastewater and purifying drinking water. The two substances investigated are the widely used painkiller diclofenac and a member of the class of "forever chemicals", perfluorobutanesulfonate.

Adsorption of Diclofenac and Its UV Phototransformation Products in an Aqueous Solution on PVDF: A Molecular Modeling Study.

The presence of pharmaceuticals in drinking water has generated considerable scientific interest in potential improvements to polymeric membranes for water purification at the nanoscale. In this work, we investigate the adsorption of diclofenac and its ultraviolet (UV) phototransformation products on amorphous and crystalline poly(vinylidene difluoride) (PVDF) membrane surfaces at the nanoscale using molecular modeling. We report binding affinities by determining the free energy landscape via the extended adaptive biasing force method.

Development and operation of the Hemispherical Blackbody (HSBB) for the calibration of infrared radiometers with a hemispherical acceptance angle.

Longwave downward radiation measurements are fundamental for investigating the surface and atmospheric energy budget of the Earth. Such measurements are performed using broadband infrared radiometers that have a hemispherical acceptance angle. A new hemispherical reference blackbody has been developed to provide a new traceability path of longwave downward radiation measurements to the SI.