Loneliness among young adults is a growing concern worldwide, posing serious health risks. While the human ecological framework explains how various factors such as socio-demographic, social, and built environment characteristics can affect this feeling, still, relatively little is known about the effect of built environment characteristics on the feelings of loneliness that young people experience in their daily life activities. This research investigates the relationship between built environment characteristics and emotional state loneliness in young adults (aged 18–25) during their daily activities. Leveraging the Experience Sampling Method, we collected data from 43 participants for 393 personal experiences during daily activities across different environmental settings. The findings of a mixed-effects regression model reveal that built environment features significantly impact emotional state loneliness. Notably, activity location accessibility, social company during activities, and walking activities all contribute to reducing loneliness. These findings can inform urban planners and municipalities to implement interventions that support youngsters’ activities and positive experiences to enhance well-being and alleviate feelings of loneliness in young adults. Specific recommendations regarding the built environment are (1) to create spaces that are accessible, (2) create spaces that are especially accessible by foot, and (3) provide housing with shared facilities for young adults rather than apartments/studios.
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Background: Nurses and nursing students experienced an emotional burden while working during the COVID-19 outbreak. During the COVID-19 outbreak three questions for nurses working under these extreme circumstances were formulated: 1. What today’s events do you remember? 2. How do you feel (physically and mentally)? 3. Do you have enough support? The purpose of this study was to obtain insight into whether nurses and nursing students perceive that the use of the three-questions-method contributes to effective coping with the emotional burden during the COVID-19 outbreak. Methods: Focus group interviews were held with hospital nurses (n = 11) and nursing students with internships in mental health care (n = 2), hospital (n = 9), and homecare/nursing home care (n = 3) in September 2020 followed by twenty semi-structured interviews one year later. Results: Almost all nurses and nursing students named factors that contributed to the emotional burden: fear, powerlessness, frustration, lack of knowledge about COVID-19, and pressure to pass the internship. Participants indicated that using the three-questions-method can help to effectively cope with the emotional burden during and after the COVID-19 outbreak. Conclusions: Using the three-questions-method offers added value in coping with emotional burden and can be used in education as well as in practice.
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By transitioning from a fossil-based economy to a circular and bio-based economy, the industry has an opportunity to reduce its overall CO2 emission. Necessary conditions for effective and significant reductions of CO2-emissions are that effective processing routes are developed that make the available carbon in the renewable sources accessible at an acceptable price and in process chains that produce valuable products that may replace fossil based products. To match the growing industrial carbon demand with sufficient carbon sources, all available circular, and renewable feedstock sources must be considered. A major challenge for greening chemistry is to find suitable sustainable carbon that is not fossil (petroleum, natural gas, coal), but also does not compete with the food or feed demand. Therefore, in this proposal, we omit the use of first generation substrates such as sugary crops (sugar beets), or starch-containing biomasses (maize, cereals).
About 35-40 kton used mattresses available yearly for the recycling only in the Netherlands. Mattresses that are offered at recycling companies, municipal yards and retailers often find their way to incinerators. However, several fraction components of used mattresses can be reused/resale in a useful manner. One of the mattress fractions is textile cover with residue of Polyurethane (PU) foam. Effective removal of PU foam would enable further reuse of textile materials. Use of harsh chemicals/ thermo-, photo-, oxidative, processes including hydrolysis, aminolysis, phosphorolysis, glycolysis etc [1,2] for PU foam degradation is not a good solution, since it will cause non-specific damage to textiles and other parts, making recycle/ reuse difficult. Therefore, Mattress Recycling Europe BV (MRE) is looking for an eco-friendly mild process for selective degradation of PU foam component. PU is a mixed polymer; therefore, it is important to establish the physio-chemical nature of PU before identifying suitable and sustainable degradation route. The proposed solution is selective degradation of PU polymer using biotechnology. Enzymatic bio-catalysis enables a targeted, specific reaction at mild process conditions (pH, temperature) without harming other components in the process. Primarily hydrolase class of enzymes is assumed to be among the most effective options for the proposed degradation of PU foam residue [3,4]. From previous research, adding mechanical shear provides a synergistic effect for enzyme catalysed reaction [5-7]. Therefore, within the scope of this exploratory practice-oriented project, technical feasibility of bio-catalyst and shear (including well established PU degradation techniques) towards the selective degradation of PU foam residue attached to textile part from used mattresses will be explored together with cost estimation of the overall process and re-usability of enzymes using suitable immobilisation technique, addressing an urgent industrial need in the field of green chemistry.