The limits of energy sufficiency: A review of the evidence for rebound effects and negative spillovers from behavioural change

‘Energy sufficiency’ involves reducing consumption of energy services in order to minimise the associated environmental impacts. This may either be through individual actions, such as reducing car travel, or through reducing working time, income and aggregate consumption (‘downshifting’). However, the environmental benefits of both strategies may be less than anticipated. First, people may save money that they can spend on other goods and services that also require energy to provide (rebounds). Second, people may feel they have ‘done her bit’ for the environment and can spend time and money on more energy-intensive goods and activities (spillovers). Third, people may save time that they can spend on other activities that also require energy to participate in (time-use rebounds). This paper reviews the current state of knowledge on rebounds and spillovers from sufficiency actions, and on time-use rebounds from downshifting. It concludes that: first, rebound effects can erode a significant proportion of the anticipated energy and emission savings from sufficiency actions; second, that such actions appear to have a very limited influence on aggregate energy use and emissions; and third, that downshifting should reduce energy use and emissions, but by proportionately less than the reduction in working hours and income

Stable and convective boundary-layer flows in an urban array

In this paper non-neutral approaching flows were employed in a meteorological wind tunnel on a regular urban-like array of rectangular buildings. As far as stable strati�cation is concerned, results on the flow above and inside the canopy show a clear reduction of the Reynolds stresses and an increment of the Monin-Obukhov length up to 80%. The roughness length and displacement height were also affected, with a reduction up to 27% for the former and an increment up to 5% for the latter. A clear reduction of the turbulence within the canopy was observed. In the convective strati�cation cases, the friction velocity appears increased by both the effect of roughness and unstable strati�cation. The increased roughness causes a reduction in the surface strati�cation, reflected in an increase of the Monin-Obukhov length, which is double over the array compared to the approaching ow. The effect on the aerodynamic roughness length and displacement height are specular to the SBL case, an increase up to 55% of the former and a reduction of the same amount for the latter

Developmental changes in the processing of faces as revealed by EEG decoding

Rapidly and accurately processing information from faces is a critical human function that is known to improve with developmental age. Understanding the underlying drivers of this improvement remains a contentious question, with debate continuing as to the presence of early vs. late maturation of face-processing mechanisms. Recent behavioural evidence suggests an important ‘hallmark’ of expert face processing – the face inversion effect – is present in very young children, yet neural support for this remains unclear. To address this, we conducted a detailed investigation of the neural dynamics of face processing in children spanning a range of ages (6–11 years) and adults. Uniquely, we applied multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) to the electroencephalogram signal (EEG) to test for the presence of a distinct neural profile associated with canonical upright faces when compared both to other objects (houses) and to inverted faces. Results revealed robust discrimination profiles, at the individual level, of differentiated neural activity associated with broad face categorization and further with its expert processing, as indexed by the face inversion effect, from the youngest ages tested. This result is consistent with an early functional maturation of broad face processing mechanisms. Yet, clear quantitative differences between the response profile of children and adults is suggestive of age-related refinement of this system with developing face and general expertise. Standard ERP analysis also provides some support for qualitative differences in the neural response to inverted faces in children in contrast to adults. This neural profile is in line with recent behavioural studies that have reported impressively expert early face abilities during childhood, while also providing novel evidence of the ongoing neural specialisation between child and adulthood

Operational mapping of the flood extent and depth from SAR images

Flood is causing devastating damages every year all over the world. One way to improve the readiness of the different stakeholders is by providing flood extent and depth maps promptly after the disaster, preferably in an automated way to reduce costs. The availability of these flood maps becomes particularly vital to assist the local authorities to plan rescue operations and evacuate the premises promptly. In the event of flooding, a clear cloud-free image acquired instantaneously, is necessary to have a synoptic view of the affected area. In this context, remotely-sensed images are suitable to map inundations, particularly when harsh climatic conditions are encountered and the access to the affected site is impractical. Moreover, satellite-borne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) sensors have been extensively used in the last two decades to monitor many flooding events by taking advantage of their ability to operate independently of the sunlight, and in cloudy conditions which are common during inundations. In the majority of previous studies working with SAR images for the detection of floods, the inundation extent is essentially the only information extracted. Although, for certain applications like the assessment of the damages caused, additional inundation characteristics are needed to give a thorough analysis of the inundation hazard, like the water level. The major advantage space-borne acquisitions have specifically over gauging stations is the global-availability and the spatial-continuity of their data. A semi-automated process was proposed in this thesis to estimate the flood depth locally in the vicinity of an inundated building from a pair of high-resolution SAR images using Genetic Algorithms followed by the inversion of an urban backscattering model. One potential application of this method is to assist insurance companies in the assessment of the damages incurred by buildings and structures in flooded urban areas. Another way satellite SAR imagery can support decision makers in increasing the preparedness, is through flood extent maps. The online web application presented in this thesis addresses the issue of the flood extent mapping from SAR images promptly following the disaster, using a supervised classifier trained automatically without any intervention from the human user. This web application allowed to delineate the extent of the flooding, and managed to reach an accurate classification of the SAR image in a reasonable time. The important advantage to emphasize is the fact that the whole process is quick and automatic, which makes it useful to assist response authorities and the affected communities during emergency situations

Testing Exogeneity in Nonparametric Instrumental Variables Models Identified by Conditional Quantile Restrictions

This paper presents a test for exogeneity of explanatory variables in a nonparametric instrumental variables (IV) model whose structural function is identified through a conditional quantile restriction. Quantile regression models are increasingly important in applied econometrics. As with mean-regression models, an erroneous assumption that the explanatory variables in a quantile regression model are exogenous can lead to highly misleading results. In addition, a test of exogeneity based on an incorrectly specified parametric model can produce misleading results. This paper presents a test of exogeneity that does not assume the structural function belongs to a known finite-dimensional parametric family and does not require estimation of this function. The latter property is important because nonparametric estimates of the structural function are unavoidably imprecise. The test presented here is consistent whenever the structural function differs from the conditional quantile function on a set of non-zero probability. The test has non-trivial power uniformly over a large class of structural functions that differ from the conditional quantile function by O(n−1/2)⁠. The results of Monte Carlo experiments and an empirical application illustrate the performance of the test

New Radio Numerology and Waveform Evaluation for Satellite Integration into 5G Terrestrial Network

This paper analyses the New Radio (NR) air interface waveforms and numerologies in the context of current activities and studies of 3GPP related to the feasibility and standardisation of necessary adaptations for the 5G NR to support integrated-satellite-terrestrial networks with low earth orbit (LEO) satellites. Frequency-localized orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)-based candidate waveforms are recommended by 3GPP as the waveforms for the NR in order to preserve the advantages of OFDM as well as maintain backward compatibility. 5G New Radio enables diverse service support, efficient synchronization and channel adaptability using a multinumerology concept, which defines a family of parameters of the parent waveform, that are related to each other by scaling. The major design challenges in the LEO satellite scenario are power limited link budget and high Doppler effects which can be addressed by choosing waveforms with small peak to average power ratio (PAPR) and sub-carrier bandwidth adaptation respectively. Hence, the selection of the right waveform and numerology is of prime relevance for the proper adaptation of 5G NR for LEO satellite terrestrial integration. The performance evaluation of the new air interface waveforms, with different numerologies, are carried out under the effect of carrier frequency offset (CFO), multipath effects, non-linearity, phase noise and additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN)

Key actions for a sustainable chemicals policy

Chemicals policies have spawned a wide range of regulations aimed at limiting damage to the environment and human health. Most instruments are reactive and fragmented. We propose a simple underpinning philosophy, “Do no harm”, to ensure a more sustainable, safe “chemical environment” for the future

DeFeat-Net: General Monocular Depth via Simultaneous Unsupervised Representation Learning

In the current monocular depth research, the dominant approach is to employ unsupervised training on large datasets, driven by warped photometric consistency. Such approaches lack robustness and are unable to generalize to challenging domains such as nighttime scenes or adverse weather conditions where assumptions about photometric consistency break down. We propose DeFeat-Net (Depth & Feature network), an approach to simultaneously learn a cross-domain dense feature representation, alongside a robust depth-estimation framework based on warped feature consistency. The resulting feature representation is learned in an unsupervised manner with no explicit ground-truth correspondences required. We show that within a single domain, our technique is comparable to both the current state of the art in monocular depth estimation and supervised feature representation learning. However, by simultaneously learning features, depth and motion, our technique is able to generalize to challenging domains, allowing DeFeat-Net to outperform the current state-of-the-art with around 10% reduction in all error measures on more challenging sequences such as nighttime driving

Paramedic independent prescribing in primary care – seven steps to success

Paramedic practice is evolving and the number of advanced paramedics in primary care roles in the UK has risen dramatically. A significant milestone for the paramedic profession, recent legislation granting paramedics independent prescribing rights means UK paramedics are the first worldwide to receive this extension in scope of practice. Paramedic prescribing capability is expected to increase autonomy for independent case management and enhance capacity for service development. Local and national success is however likely to depend on skilful implementation and the avoidance of historical barriers. This article aims to raise awareness of potential barriers to early adoption of paramedic independent prescribing in primary care. It identifies common pitfalls prior to training and provides seven practical steps for paramedics considering pursuing non-medical prescribing training