Evaluation of selected chemical processes for production of low-cost silicon

Plant construction costs and manufacturing costs were estimated for the production of solar-grade silicon by the reduction of silicon tetrachloride in a fluidized bed of seed particles, and several modifications of the iodide process using either thermal decomposition on heated filaments (rods) or hydrogen reduction in a fluidized bed of seed particles. Energy consumption data for the zinc reduction process and each of the iodide process options are given and all appear to be acceptable from the standpoint of energy pay back. Information is presented on the experimental zinc reduction of SiCl4 and electrolytic recovery of zinc from ZnCl2. All of the experimental work performed thus far has supported the initial assumption as to technical feasibility of producing semiconductor silicon by the zinc reduction or iodide processes proposed. The results of a more thorough thermodynamic evaluation of the iodination of silicon oxide/carbon mixtures are presented which explain apparent inconsistencies in an earlier cursory examination of the system

Long-run Patterns of Labour Market Polarisation: Evidence from German Micro Data

The past four decades have witnessed dramatic changes in the structure of employment. In particular, the rapid increase in computational power has led to large-scale reductions in employment in jobs that can be described as intensive in routine tasks. These jobs have been shown to be concentrated in middle skill occupations. A large literature on labour market polarisation characterises and measures these processes at an aggregate level. How- ever to date there is little information regarding the individual worker adjustment processes related to routine- biased technological change. Using an administrative panel data set for Germany, we follow workers over an ex- tended period of time and provide evidence of both the short-term adjustment process and medium-run effects of routine task intensive job loss at an individual level. We initially demonstrate a marked, and steady, shift in em- ployment away from routine, middle-skill, occupations. In subsequent analysis, we demonstrate how exposure to jobs with higher routine task content is associated with a reduced likelihood of being in employment in both the short term (after one year) and medium term (five years). This employment penalty to routineness of work has increased over the past four decades. More generally, we demonstrate that routine task work is associated with reduced job stability and more likelihood of experiencing periods of unemployment. However, these negative ef- fects of routine work appear to be concentrated in increased employment to employment, and employment to unemployment transitions rather than longer periods of unemployment

Marine pollution damage in Australia: implementing the Bunker Oil Convention 2001 and the Supplementary Fund Protocol 2003

The grounding of the bulk carrier Pasha Bulker on Nobbys beach, Newcastle in June 2007 has again highlighted the risk from shipping posed to Australia’s extensive and environmentally fragile coastline. Whilst a pollution incident was averted in this case, spills from shipping in other states (such as the Nakhodka spill off Japan in 1997, the Prestige spill off France in 1999, the Erika spill off Spain in 2003 and the Hebei Spirit spill of South Korea in 2007), have required the constant monitoring and updating of the international regulatory regimes designed to prevent such incidents occurring and to provide compensation when they nevertheless do occur. Two recent additions to this international regulatory system are the Protocol on the Establishment of a Supplementary Fund for Oil Pollution Damage 2003, (the “Supplementary Fund Protocol 2003”) and the International Convention on Civil Liability for Bunker Oil Pollution Damage 2001 (“the Bunker Oil Convention 2001”). In 2008, Australia gave effect to these instruments, enacting the Supplementary Fund Protocol via the Protection of the Sea Legislation Amendment Act 2008 (Cth), while the Bunker Oil Convention is given effect through the Protection of the Sea (Civil Liability for Bunker Oil Pollution Damage) Act 2008 (Cth), and the Protection of the Sea (Civil Liability For Bunker Oil Pollution Damage) (Consequential Amendments) Act 2008 (Cth). The purpose of this article is to analyse these international instruments, describe how they came about, and explain the Australian implementation of them. In particular, consideration is given to the question of limitation of liability, especially the relationship between bunker pollution claims and the Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims (LLMC) 1976, as amended in 1996

Inter industry linkages in New Zealand

This paper investigates the production structure of the New Zealand business sector using the recently released 1996 input output tables. The analysis is undertaken at the most disaggregated level for which data are available, 126 industries. Indices of backward and forward linkages, measures of industry interconnectedness and a value added production multiplier are calculated. The ranking of industries by degree of connectedness depends on whether direct transactions or both direct and indirect transactions are considered. In 1996, wholesale and retail trade, air transport, services to transport and storage, central government administration, meat processing, and dairy product manufacturing had the strongest backward and forward links with other industries.Input output models, inter industry dependencies

Meromorphic Levy processes and their fluctuation identities

The last couple of years has seen a remarkable number of new, explicit examples of the Wiener-Hopf factorization for Levy processes where previously there had been very few. We mention in particular the many cases of spectrally negative Levy processes, hyper-exponential and generalized hyper-exponential Levy processes, Lamperti-stable processes, Hypergeometric processes, Beta-processes and Theta-processes. In this paper we introduce a new family of Levy processes, which we call Meromorphic Levy processes, or just M-processes for short, which overlaps with many of the aforementioned classes. A key feature of the M-class is the identification of their Wiener-Hopf factors as rational functions of infinite degree written in terms of poles and roots of the Levy-Khintchin exponent, all of which appear on the imaginary axis of the complex plane. The specific structure of the M-class Wiener-Hopf factorization enables us to explicitly handle a comprehensive suite of fluctuation identities that concern first passage problems for finite and infinite intervals for both the process itself as well as the resulting process when it is reflected in its infimum. Such identities are of fundamental interest given their repeated occurrence in various fields of applied probability such as mathematical finance, insurance risk theory and queuing theory.Comment: 12 figure

Risk-specific search for risk-defusing operators

According to the concept of “active risk-defusing behavior”, decision makers in risky situations look for additional actions that reduce risk and allow them to favor the more risky alternative. Our study demonstrates that risk-defusing behavior depends on the type of risk (normal, medium, catastrophic or global) as well as on the domain (health, economy or ecology). In total, 12 scenarios (four risk types from three risk domains each) were constructed. Using the interview techniques of active information search and thinking-aloud, 120 interviews about decision-making processes with these scenarios were conducted. They showed that the active search for different risk-defusing operators depends on the type of risk, but even more on the domain of the scenario. Results suggest a need for further research about a typology of risk situations in which, besides formal classification criteria, content issues are also explored

ZONE-BASED GROUP RISK INSURANCE

Current country-based group crop insurance, i.e., Group Risk Plan (GRP), is not an effective risk-reducing tool in counties where natural conditions are different across the area. Using only the historical yield information, a statistical approach is developed to group farmers by their yield similarity rather than linking them based on their association with a particular county. The cases of Washington State wheat farms and Iowa corn farms are the focus of this investigation. Sub-county or cross-county zones (clusters) are identified, and each farm is classified into a cluster where individual farm identification remains unknown. To improve risk-management and cost effectiveness of the crop insurance instrument, we propose implementation of zone-based GRP as a substitute for county-based GRP, where homogeneous zones rather than county boundaries are used for indemnifying yield.Risk and Uncertainty,

Problems and Prospects of Islamic Banking: a case Study of Takaful

The paper is an attempt to analyse the working of Takaul in the world and its popularity in the insurance sector in the world. Keeping in view of Sharia we have also tried all possible aspects of insurance system popular in the world and tried to look at its possibility to familiarize more amongst Muslims of the world. It is observed that customer awareness remain low, however this is often attributed to a limited understanding of Islamic finance in the banking and insurance world. We wish to have a proper salesmanship and advertisement of Islamic banking system in India and all around the world.Islamic Banking, Takaful