Earthquakes are a major threat to lives, livelihoods, and economic development in China. Of the 2-2.5 million deaths in earthquakes worldwide since 1900, at least 650,000 have occurred in China. Chinese earthquakes have caused three of the ten highest death tolls in earthquakes since 1900 and have led to estimated losses of $678 billion (in 2012 USD). The 2008 Wenchuan earthquake alone caused direct economic losses of more than RMB840 billion, despite affecting largely rural areas of Sichuan province and causing only minor damage to the provincial capital of Chengdu. A future earthquake in China could cause catastrophic losses, and disaster risk reduction (DRR) efforts in China are therefore of critical importance. Local communities play a critical role in DRR preparation and planning. In the immediate aftermath of a large earthquake, communities are often cut off from outside resources and assistance, and must rely on their own plans and capacities. This is especially true of communities in remote or mountainous areas like northwestern China. While DRR planning in China has traditionally followed a very centralised approach, there is growing recognition of the importance of community-based disaster risk reduction (CBDRR) efforts. Most notably, the Ministry of Civil Affairs has embarked on a major programme to establish a network of thousands of 'demonstration communities' that have met minimum requirements for local-scale disaster preparedness. The proposed research is specifically aimed at supporting and enhancing the MoCA programme. Our work will ensure that it draws on broad scientific knowledge of the hazard, including secondary earthquake hazards such as landslides. Our work will also explore the factors that make communities more or less willing to engage in CBDRR, so that the MoCA programme can best reflect the broad diversity of communities that are exposed to that hazard. We will first look at the ways in which CBDRR is achieved in China, and how these approaches compare to those in other earthquake-prone countries. At the same time, we will produce a new inventory of landslides in northwestern China (an area that includes Gansu, Shaanxi, and Ningxia provinces), and will generate new knowledge on the sizes and effects of past landslides as a guide to landslide hazard in future earthquakes. Finally, we will work with two specific communities to find out their priority concerns and their awareness of the hazards that they face, and to come up with ideas for how they might deal with those hazards in a future earthquake. The emphasis of our work will be on sustained engagement with groups of engaged citizens to come up with solutions that will work in their communities. The goal throughout will be to take a community-centred approach to understanding the choices that people make to protect themselves from earthquakes. The project will lead to (1) new knowledge of landslide hazard in the region; (2) better understanding of the factors that help communities to engage with DRR issues; and (3) strategies for local earthquake resilience that complement and extend the National Five-Year Plans for Comprehensive Disaster Reduction. By increasing resilience at the community level to the damaging earthquakes that will surely occur across this region in future, the project will make a direct contribution to sustainable growth and economic welfare. The research and training that we propose will increase local capacity to assess and plan for the effects of future earthquakes. Finally, China has engaged in constructive cooperation in south-south exchanges of knowledge in DRR, e.g. through the CBDM Asia project. We are keen to contribute to these exchanges and wider economic development of the region by sharing the outcomes of this research with partners in other earthquake-prone countries across Asia.

The specialized training of health professionals in organ donation has turned to be one of the crucial factors for increasing donation rates in all countries. China the 2nd largest country in the world is facing the challenge of establishing an ethical and sustainable system of organ donation. The donation rate (PMP) was 2.02 in 2015, which is far behind when comparing with most of the countries in the world. Training for medical professionals is an effective approach to increase donation rate in China. Unfortunately, this work in training is far away from enough.Therefore; University of Barcelona, University of Bologna and University of Nice together with DTI-Foundation initiate KeTLOD project to fill-in the gap of the training lack in the Chinese universities on organ donation. This initiative is based on European great experience in donation activity and on the training of more than 10.000 health care professionals trained form the University of Barcelona through the Transplant Procurement Program since 1991 in this field.KeTLOD project will facilitate the design of a postgraduate program in organ donation field, for the Chinese health care professionals’ customized to their needs that will be implemented in 7 Universities. The KeTLOD curriculum is conceived as blended training program, in accordance with European Space for Higher Education guidelines and will offer knowledge and experience in clinical approach, management and dissemination strategies in Organ Donation. KeTLOD consist in a 625 hours program that will lead to 25 ETCS.KeTLOD will empower professional competences; enhance the detection and referral of potential donors and encourage a positive attitude towards donation in the society. KeTLOD; customized to the Chinese health professional needs, translated in Chinese language and shaped as blended training course, implemented in 7 crucial universities in terms of educational background and capacity and their geographical position will be a great

The project aims to develop innovative polymer electrolyte based electrolysers with lower life cycle costs (achieved by enhanced efficiency) utilising enhanced materials and components. This proposal is based on adopting alkaline anion-exchange membrane (AEM) and ionomer (AEI) technology to open up the opportunity for low cost electrolysers systems with: i) low cost polymer electrolytes, catalysts (sustainable i.e. non-Pt), and bipolar plate materials; ii) higher energy efficiency; iii) durable long life operation; and iv) flexibility to respond to dynamic load operation. We target electrolysers involving hydrogen production from water electrolysis and involving carbon dioxide reduction for low overpotential (high value) organic chemical synthesis. A major aim is to produce the next generation of AAEMs and AEIs that can be supplied to (current and future) project partners in bulk quantities (including AEIs in a solubilised form). Hydrogen is an excellent storage medium for renewable and sustainable energy systems. Hydrogen has several advantages as an energy carrier including highly efficient reversible conversion between hydrogen and electricity, good gravimetric energy density of compressed gas compared to most batteries and scalability of hydrogen technologies for grid scale applications. Water electrolysis is a safe option for production of pure hydrogen at point of use as it does not require substantial storage requirements. Currently, the cost of hydrogen produced by electrolysis is greater than that of other methods such as steam reforming. Two major reasons for this is the capital cost of the cells and the electrical energy consumption. Commercial hydrogen production by water electrolysis is based on one of two technologies: aqueous alkaline (potassium hydroxide) electrolytes and proton exchange membrane electrolytes. Alkaline cells use lower cost electrode materials than acid polymer systems but current densities (and efficiency) are typically lower. The capital cost of proton exchange membrane electrolysers is higher (largely dictated by the high material costs of membranes [perfluorinated polymers] and precious metal [Pt, Ir, Ru] based catalysts) but their production rates (per unit electrode area) are higher based on the higher current densities. We thus seek to transform the latter technology by combing the advantages of alkaline and polymer electrolytes using low cost materials with the aim of improving energy efficiencies. Realistically there is a minimum energy consumption that can be achieved by electrolysis (based on thermodynamic potentials and voltage losses in the cell) and thus we set our target at a voltage of 1.75 V at 1 A cm-2 (based on geometric electrode area). To maximise the potential impact of the materials being developed, carbon dioxide reducing electrolysers will also be studied (involving the field of carbon dioxide utilisation). The reduction of carbon dioxide into useful chemicals is of great potential value from a sustainability, environmental and societal context. Such syntheses require a significant energy use and thus using renewable electrical energy in such applications could play a major part in their development. Consequently we seek to develop electrochemical technology whereby we synthesis small molecules (formate, synthesis gas, and/or methanol) based on anion exchange membrane electrolyser materials and architectures (including the involvement of carbonate anion conducting electrolytes - which inherently yield higher chemical stabilities compared to hydroxide conducting analogues). The project aims to deliver a step change in uptake of ultra-low carbon, green-hydrogen production and carbon dioxide reduction systems. This will be based upon the application of the applicants previous technology breakthroughs of alkaline polymer electrolyte materials and non-precious metal catalyst for galvanic and electrolytic electrochemical energy conversion and storage technologies.

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