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This fascinating and innovative study explores the lives of people living in early modern Ireland through the books and printed ephemera which they bought, borrowed or stole from others. While the importance of books and printing in influencing the outlook of early modern people is well known, recent years have seen significant changes in our understanding of how writing and print shaped lives, and was in turn shaped by those who appropriated the written word. This book draws on this literature to shed light on the changes that took place in this unusual European society. The author finds that there, almost uniquely in Europe, a set of revolutions took place which transformed the lives of the Irish in unexpected ways, and that the rise of writing and the spread of print were central to an understanding of those changes which have previously only been understood to have been the result of conquest and colonisation. This is a book which will be read not only by those interested in the Irish past but by all those who are concerned with the impact of communications media on social change.

Videoland offers a comprehensive view of the \"tangible phase\" of consumer video, when Americans largely accessed movies as material commodities at video rental stores. Video stores served as a vital locus of movie culture from the early 1980s until the early 2000s, changing the way Americans socialized around movies and collectively made movies meaningful. When films became tangible as magnetic tapes and plastic discs, movie culture flowed out from the theater and the living room, entered the public retail space, and became conflated with shopping and salesmanship. In this process, video stores served as a crucial embodiment of movie culture's historical move toward increased flexibility, adaptability, and customization. In addition to charting the historical rise and fall of the rental industry, Herbert explores the architectural design of video stores, the social dynamics of retail encounters, the video distribution industry, the proliferation of video recommendation guides, and the often surprising persistence of the video store as an adaptable social space of consumer culture. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, cultural geography, and archival research, Videoland provides a wide-ranging exploration of the pivotal role video stores played in the history of motion pictures, and is a must-read for students and scholars of media history.

An innovative book revealing the impact of print on social change in early modern Ireland.

Over the past 600 years, commodity frontiers – processes and sites of the incorporation of resources into the expanding capitalist world economy – have absorbed ever more land, ever more labour and ever more natural assets. In this paper, we claim that studying the global history of capitalism through the lens of commodity frontiers and using commodity regimes as an analytical framework is crucial to understanding the origins and nature of capitalism, and thus the modern world. We argue that commodity frontiers identify capitalism as a process rooted in a profound restructuring of the countryside and nature. They connect processes of extraction and exchange with degradation, adaptation and resistance in rural peripheries. To account for the enormous variety of actors and places involved in this history is a critical challenge in the social sciences, and one to which global history can contribute crucial insights.

Nanotechnology is advancing at an accelerated pace in applications and novel nanomaterials. To become an enabling technology for a more sustainable society, we identify and assess nanomaterials and applications trends with potentially significant environmental implications.

Recycled plastics are low-value commodities due to residual impurities and the degradation of polymer properties with each cycle of re-use. Plastics that undergo reversible polymerization allow high-value monomers to be recovered and re-manufactured into pristine materials, which should incentivize recycling in closed-loop life cycles. However, monomer recovery is often costly, incompatible with complex mixtures and energy-intensive. Here, we show that next-generation plastics—polymerized using dynamic covalent diketoenamine bonds—allow the recovery of monomers from common additives, even in mixed waste streams. Poly(diketoenamine)s ‘click’ together from a wide variety of triketones and aromatic or aliphatic amines, yielding only water as a by-product. Recovered monomers can be re-manufactured into the same polymer formulation, without loss of performance, as well as other polymer formulations with differentiated properties. The ease with which poly(diketoenamine)s can be manufactured, used, recycled and re-used—without losing value—points to new directions in designing sustainable polymers with minimal environmental impact. It is difficult to recover materials for re-manufacturing and re-use from plastics that are compounded with colourants, fillers and flame retardants. Now, it has been shown that alternative plastics based on dynamic covalent poly(diketoenamine)s depolymerize in strong aqueous acids and enable triketone and amine monomers to be isolated and upcycled into new plastics.

Every step in the life cycle of a material leaves a footprint on our planet. From the extraction or harvesting of raw materials to their conversion into familiar products, and then from the daily use of such products to their disposal, each phase has to be managed responsibly to avoid the risks related to the depletion of resources, increase in CO2 emissions and waste accumulation. Due to their large worldwide consumption, the environmental impact of some materials is particularly critical. For instance, concrete is one of the most important construction materials used in houses and infrastructure, where it is usually combined with metal alloys for structural reinforcement and decorative purposes. Metals are also used in a wide range of applications, from kitchen tools to vehicles and rocket engines. We asked experts in concrete research and metallurgy their opinions of the critical aspects related to the sustainable production, use and disposal of these materials, and their views on the strategies that are being adopted and may be further explored to decrease the environmental burden of these commodities. In the case of concrete, partial or complete replacement of one of its components, Portland cement, is essential to cut the CO2 emissions and energy consumption caused by its production. Defect engineering of metal alloys may be a viable approach to tune the mechanical response of structural materials without increasing the number of elements included in their composition.

Tissue engineering faces a recurring challenge in the transformation of biomaterials into 3D constructs that mimic the biological, chemical, and mechanical features of native tissues. Some of the conventional approaches can be sophisticated and involve extensive material processing and high-cost fabrication procedures. Despite tremendous strides in biomaterials discovery and characterization, the functional and manufacturing limitations have led to the innovation of novel biomimetic techniques that borrow from nature, human-made commodities, and other parts of life to overcome the challenges in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. This review explores engineering strategies that involve unusual materials for improved functionality, scalability, sustainability, and cost-efficiency. The biomaterials discussed are globally accessible resources and can serve across a wide spectrum of biomedical research areas. Tissue engineering has demonstrated remarkable progress in facilitating regeneration in diseased or damaged tissues. The field suffers from lack of biomaterials that provide sufficient vascularization for proper integration with surrounding tissues. The development of functional materials can be an efficient approach to address this concern.New strategies involve the rethinking of unconventional materials. Using materials such as plants, paper, ice, textiles, marine organisms, and edible products in modified fabrication techniques also adds the aspect of sustainability in these fields.These approaches address the functional limitations in tissue engineering technologies and offer biological, chemical, and mechanical robustness. With increased utilization of abundant and sustainable resources, the potential of tissue engineering technologies can reach a global scale.

Due to their unique characteristics, nanoparticles are increasingly used in agricultural production through foliage spraying and soil application. The use of nanoparticles can improve the efficiency of agricultural chemicals and reduce the pollution caused by the use of agricultural chemicals. However, introducing nanoparticles into agricultural production may pose risks to the environment, food and even human health. Therefore, it is crucial to pay attention to the absorption migration, and transformation in crops, and to the interaction with higher plants and plant toxicity of nanoparticles in agriculture. Research shows that nanoparticles can be absorbed by plants and have an impact on plant physiological activities, but the absorption and transport mechanism of nanoparticles is still unclear. This paper summarizes the research progress of the absorption and transportation of nanoparticles in plants, especially the effect of size, surface charge and chemical composition of nanoparticle on the absorption and transportation in leaf and root through different ways. This paper also reviews the impact of nanoparticles on plant physiological activity. The content of the paper is helpful to guide the rational application of nanoparticles in agricultural production and ensure the sustainability of nanoparticles in agricultural production.

Polymers shape human life but they also have been identified as pollutants in the oceans due to their long lifetime and low degradability. Recently, various researchers have studied the impact of (micro)plastics on marine life, biodiversity, and potential toxicity. Even if the consequences are still heavily discussed, prevention of unnecessary waste is desired. Especially, newly designed polymers that degrade in seawater are discussed as potential alternatives to commodity polymers in certain applications. Biodegradable polymers that degrade in vivo (used for biomedical applications) or during composting often exhibit too slow degradation rates in seawater. To date, no comprehensive summary for the degradation performance of polymers in seawater has been reported, nor are the studies for seawater‐degradation following uniform standards. This review summarizes concepts, mechanisms, and other factors affecting the degradation process in seawater of several biodegradable polymers or polymer blends. As most of such materials cannot degrade or degrade too slowly, strategies and innovative routes for the preparation of seawater‐degradable polymers with rapid degradation in natural environments are reviewed. It is believed that this selection will help to further understand and drive the development of seawater‐degradable polymers. Plastic pollution of the oceans is a major concern today due to the long life of commodity polymers. The degradation profiles of conventional biodegradable polymers, such as polylactide, polycaprolactone, and others in seawater, are reviewed. As many of them degrade relatively slowly, additional strategies for the development of seawater‐degradable polymers are highlighted.