The need of standardization and the potential role of voluntary approaches: Issues and trends in Italian GCHP market

Despite the lack of specific incentives, Ground Coupled Heat Pumps (GCHP) installations are booming in Italy both in private and public sectors of the market. Such rapid growth entails an increasing concern for environmental and technical performances since no comprehensive regulation and reliable standards exist yet. By means of an investigation of sectoral opinion leaders and SWOT-based technique for building scenarios, this paper discusses potential schemes for balancing mandatory and voluntary requirements. The analysis suggests that standardization and voluntary schemes are perceived as effective tools to encourage the greening of Italian GCHP-SMEs in short-run while laying the foundations for evolving sustainable policies in the longer run. A potential scheme that has been simulated by reflecting the supply-side orientations of the market and that involves of process and product standards is discussed.

‘Atypical Work’ and Compensation

Atypical work, or alternative work arrangements in U.S. parlance, has long been criticized in popular debate as providing poorly-compensated employment. Although the early U.S. literature seemed to confirm this perception, more recent cet. par. analysis has offered a partial but somewhat more optimistic evaluation. The present paper builds on the latter body of research with a view to providing improved estimates of the effect of the full range alternative work arrangements on worker compensation. The improvements are basically two-fold. First, we account for the skewness in atypical worker earnings while retaining the Mincerian human capital earnings function. Second, we deploy additional waves of the main dataset on atypical workers (the CAEAS), while supplementing this cross-section analysis with longitudinal data from the NLSY. Our analysis covers earnings and (access to) health benefits. We report that although one group of atypical workers (contractors) seems to enjoy a wage premium, cross-section results from the CPS and NLSY for the better-known category of temporary workers point to a negative wage differential of some 6-15 percent. It emerges that much of the disparity stems from unobserved worker heterogeneity, accounting for which still supports a wage advantage for contracting work. As far as fringes are concerned, the appearance in cross section of a potentially large deficit in access to health benefits is again reduced after accounting for the permanent unobserved individual heterogeneity, although in this case the attenuation is much more modest.atypical/contingent work, alternative work arrangements, wage differentials, employer-related health insurance

Reform of the Fiscal and Subsidy Regime for the Petroleum Sector (Based on a Report Commissioned by the Petroleum Federation of India)

Reform of the oil sector is long overdue. The problems in the sector emanate from the structure of central taxes and the system of subsidisation through prices. Solutions to the problems necessarily have to address both tax and subsidy simultaneously. The social losses include, misuse / wasteful use of scarce petroleum resources, diversion, adulteration, other avoidable negative externalities, improper substitution between products, tax arbitrage, distortion of consumer preferences and input choices of industries, and international cross hauling of petroleum. Nearly all these costs, and problems arise not because of subsidisation per se but due to the use of varying retail prices that are used to subsidise. Prices for the same product vary for different consumers besides. They also vary across products. These tax /subsidy variations are the root cause of nearly all problems in the sector. Autonomous price variations (i.e. those resulting from the actions of firms (under a regime of non-distortionary subsidies) would be small and not subject to ‘arbitrage’ i.e. to the realisation of rents through diversion and adulteration. Tax reform – viz casting all taxes in the form of value added taxes has not taken place in the sector despite the passage of nearly 15 years since such reform was put in place in nearly all other sectors of manufacturing. Complete deregulation of the sector allowing oil producers, oil refiners, marketing companies, and integrated operators to price their products as they deem fit. Recast central indirect taxes (excise whether specific or ad valorem) into a value added tax, as for any other product., i.e., allowing input credit for all registered intermediate users of petroleum products is overdue. Central government revenues can be protected by working out a revenue neutral value added tax rate. This we have estimated approximately to be 110-120% of value added uniformly to all segments in the industry. Such a tax regime would also be neutral to the degree of vertical integration and remove the biases in the use of products. The Public Distribution System (PDS) is not necessary and ought to be dismantled. Kerosene would then be sold in the open market for all consumers. Kerosene could also be sold by retail outlets, kirana shops, other retail outlets, and by current PDS retailers on par with kirana shops/ ROs. Ditto for LPG. Subsidies are administered through endowments defined upfront, which allows the subsidised consumer to access his/her endowments, trade the same, convert the same into cash all without the causing any distortion. Only pipelines are subject to regulation by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulator. The second best proposals involve the changes/recommendations as before but additionally creates a “Crude Price Stabilisation Fund” (CSF) that allows crude prices (both sharp rises and sudden falls) to be moderated, so that pass thru is influenced by the managers of the CSF. It is important that the CSF is set up as in independent body and insulated from the government and is governed by strict and automatic rules that make rapid price adjustment (to the market prices) necessary when the fund position is low, so that the probability of the fund going bankrupt is kept at nearly zero. A fund between $25 to 40 billion is envisaged. A fund of$40 billion (Rs. 200,000 crore) envisaged as a credit line would work in most situations. The fund would operate with strict limits on the quantum of the credit line used to pay out stabilization subsidies during the boom phase of the price cycle as also on the accumulated reserves built up from stabilization taxes during the bust phase of the price cycle. To ensure that such crude stabilisation measures do not affect the competitiveness of the industry exports of product (and crude) are taxed when crude is subsidised, and subsidised when crude is taxed. Appropriate conversion factors would apply. The conversion factor should be based on a refinery loss of between 10 and 7% say 8.5%.

Technology without borders: case studies of successful technology transfer

Technology Without Borders presents case studies of successful transfer of climate-friendly technology and practices. It explores the causes for success and draws the lessons learned. Key messages are presented for the fight against climate destabilisation. The terms “climate-friendly technology” and “climate technology” used here refer to technologies, practices or techniques, which reduce greenhouse-gas emissions or assist countries in adapting to climate change

Mapeamento prospectivo de fatores de risco no sistema sociotécnico de assistência à saúde

Orientador: Saide Jorge CalilTese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Elétrica e de ComputaçãoResumo: O grande número de mortes evitáveis na área de saúde revela a necessidade de mudar o mo-do como o sistema lida com eventos adversos. Apesar de esforços para promover uma abor-dagem sistêmica ao gerenciamento de risco, a cultura da culpa ainda predomina. O resultado é a resistência generalizada à investigação de incidentes e a incapacidade de promover mu-danças sistêmicas duradouras. O problema é amplificado pelo uso de ferramentas que se limitam aos fatores de risco no nível do ambiente de trabalho. O objetivo primário deste estudo é desenvolver um método prospectivo para mapear fatores de risco em múltiplos ní-veis hierárquicos do sistema de cuidado à saúde que possam contribuir com a ocorrência de eventos adversos no ambiente de trabalho. A maior parte das referências usadas nesta pes-quisa está associada a fatores de risco e gerenciamento de risco no cuidado à saúde, a mode-los de formação de acidentes e a ferramentas de gerenciamento de risco aplicadas na área de cuidado à saúde e em outras áreas. Como nenhum sistema ou ferramenta única pareceu completamente compatível com o objetivo primário deste trabalho, um conjunto básico de conceitos de gerenciamento de risco foi extraído das referências, especialmente do modelo do `Queijo Suíço¿ de Reason e da estrutura sociotécnica de Rasmussen. Os conceitos foram agrupados num modelo de formação de acidentes híbrido que abrange interações entre ele-mentos do ambiente de trabalho e malhas de controle sociotécnicas. O modelo foi então usa-do como base para o desenvolvimento de um método prospectivo para o mapeamento de fatores de risco. Devido aos requisitos de escopo, o Mapa de Fatores de Risco resultante to-ma emprestados elementos estruturais do AcciMap, de Rasmussen e pode mesmo ser consi-derado como inspirado por ele, embora tenha como foco análises prospectivas, não investi-gações retrospectivas de incidentes críticos. Três estudos de caso foram feitos como teste para o método: o primeiro foi baseado num relatório de avaliação de risco feito com uma ferramenta diferente de gerenciamento de risco; o segundo se concentrou no nível regulató-rio do sistema brasileiro de cuidado à saúde; e o terceiro foi um mapa genérico de fatores de risco baseado na literatura sobre bombas de infusão. Os resultados mostram que o método pode ser usado prospectivamente e que ele abrange os múltiplos níveis hierárquicos do sis-tema sociotécnico de cuidado à saúde. A natureza distinta dos estudos de caso mostra que o método é flexível o bastante para ser aplicado a uma variedade de objetivos e escopos e, se adaptado, também a outras áreas. O Mapa de Fatores de Risco é trabalhoso e a qualidade das análises depende da experiência dos analistas, mas estudos adicionais são necessários para avaliar sua efetividade em comparação com outras ferramentas de avaliação de risco, espe-cialmente o AcciMap. Outra limitação do Mapa de Fatores de Risco é sua natureza predomi-nantemente qualitativa, que reduz sua utilidade para a priorização de correções no sistema. Pesquisas futuras podem reduzir essa limitação pela integração dos Mapas de Fatores de Risco com dados quantitativos de sistemas de notificação de incidentesAbstract: The high volume of preventable deaths in health care reveals the necessity of adjusting how the system deals with adverse events. Despite efforts to promote a systemic approach to risk management, the culture of blame is still prevalent. The result is a general resistance to in-vestigating incidents and inability to promote lasting systemic changes. The problem is am-plified by the use of tools limited to risk factors at the workspace level of the system. The primary objective of this study is to develop a prospective method to map risk factors at mul-tiple hierarchical levels of the health care system that may contribute to the occurrence of adverse events at the workspace level. Most references used in this research are related to risk factors and risk management in health care, to accident causation models, and to risk management tools employed in health care and elsewhere. Because no single system or tool seemed fully compatible with the primary objective, a set of basic risk management concepts was extracted from the references, especially Reason¿s Swiss Cheese Model and Rasmus-sen¿s Socio-Technical framework. The concepts were assembled into a hybrid accident cau-sation model that encompasses both workspace element interactions and socio-technical controls. The model was then used as the foundation for developing a prospective risk fac-tors mapping method. Due to scope requirements, the resulting Risk Factors Map borrows structure elements from Rasmussen¿s AcciMap and may be considered inspired by it, though it is focused on prospective analyses, not retrospective critical incident investigations. Three case studies were conducted as a test of the method: the first one was based on a risk assessment report made with a different risk management tool, the second was focused at the regulatory level of the Brazilian health care system, and the third one was a generic Risk Factors Map based on the literature on infusion pumps. The results show the method can be used prospectively and it encompasses the multiple hierarchical levels of the socio-technical health care system. The distinct nature of the case studies shows the method is flexible enough to be applied to a variety of objectives and scopes and, with adaptations, also to oth-er domains. The Risk Factors Map requires much time to be completed and the quality of analyses depends on the expertise of the analysts, but additional studies are required to as-sess its effectiveness in comparison with other risk assessment tools, especially the Acci-Map. Another limitation of the Risk Factors Map is its predominantly qualitative nature, which reduces its usefulness for prioritizing system corrections. Further research may re-duce this limitation by integrating Risk Factors Maps with quantitative data from incident report systemsDoutoradoEngenharia BiomedicaDoutor em Engenharia Elétrica141021/2009-8CNP

Structurally Stable Transport Flows and Patterns of Location

This report describes developments of the continuous model of trade and equilibrium in two-dimensional space introduced by Martin J. Beckman in the early 1950s. The original model is extended by treating several interrelated commodity flows and an explicit production activity, transforming the contents of one flow (labor services) into another (finished goods). A residential-industrial agglomeration pattern arises that corresponds to the two flows. This general model, which is capable of representing very diverse spatial organizations, but at the same time contains very little information, is specified by using the generic theory of differential equations. Therefore, if structural stability of the flows of commodities is assumed, it is possible to obtain a rather precise topological characterization of the stable flow and of the corresponding spatial organization. The main conclusion reached is that extreme care should be taken when deriving the results of classical market area from nonlinear models. The classical theory is linear and, therefore, always structurally stable. Without linearity (i.e. homogeneous space) stability is no longer guaranteed, but must be expressly assumed. The conclusions about basic spatial organization then become very different

Social capital, rationality, and inequality : the distribution of environmental health risks in the Southeastern United States

This doctoral dissertation examines the distribution of environmentally risky technologies in the Southeastern United States. The empirical target is commercial treatment, storage, and disposal (TSD) installations of hazardous waste. Two questions motivate the investigation: where are hazardous waste installations located, and why? These installations handle substances that increase rates of mortality and serious irreversible illness, and pose a significant hazard to human health and the environment. Scholars maintain the hazardous waste stream in the United States has a grisly logic - it is distributed on the population unevenly, with poor communities of color burdened disproportionately. The dissertation tests four hypotheses distilled from four theories of human organization of space for risky technologies. The first hypothesis, economic rationality, examines the distribution of TSD installations from the standpoint of commercial operators. TSD installation operators insist they select commercially suitable locations not areas with historically disadvantaged populations. The second hypothesis, scientific rationality, examines the distribution problem from the standpoint of EPA geologists, hydrologists and engineers, that insist siting decisions are based on clearly articulated scientific criteria. The third hypothesis, community social capital, analyzes the geographic unevenness of environmental health risks as a function of the variable capacity of communities to resist the placement of a facility in their neighborhood by levels of trust, cohesion, and reciprocity that obtain. The fourth hypothesis, race and class inequality, examines the claim that inequitable siting of hazardous waste installations is an outcropping of direct and indirect institutional discrimination. The dataset is a match of records on fully operational treatment, storage and disposal facilities and large quantity generators of hazardous waste from the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Social and Demographic Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, population and housing data at the census tract level from the US Census Bureau, non-profit organization data from the National Center for Charitable Statistics and the People of Color Environmental Groups Directory, and seismic hazard and hydrologic data from the US Geological Survey. Bivariate and multivariate statistical results suggest that siting outcomes are predictable by the distribution of social capital assets, the racial composition of a community, the seismological unsuitability a land use, and TSD installation proximity to adequately skilled labor and hazardous materials for processing. The concentration of large quantity generator activity and the percentage of African-Americans in a neighborhood prevail as the most consistent and powerful predictors of TSD installation siting at regional and sub-regional levels, and across different spatial measures of environmental health risk. Uneven distribution of environmental burdens by race violates the promise of President Clinton\u27s Executive Order 12898, mandating fair treatment of all people in the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies. The dissertation ends with a risk allocation scheme to solve the systemic Prisoners\u27 Dilemma of concentrated environmental burden and diffuse environmental benefit

Securing Smart Grids to Address Environmental Issues in Regional Planning

This chapter examines regional planning and development in relation to sustainability and highlights sustainability challenges in various regional planning case studies. Creating smart cities addresses the problems that arise from rapid urbanisation and growth of the urban population. This chapter provides an overview of smart cities and discusses several global smart city efforts. It introduces the idea of smart energy highlighting the smart grid components and how it tackles environmental challenges in regional planning. Additionally, it analyses several threats to the smart grid that may hinder its efficient operation and makes suggestions on how to deal with them so that sustainable energy may be delivered to smart cities

Computational Studies on Cellulose : Pyrolysis, Nanostructure and Hydrodynamic Behaviour

Cellulose, the major component of plant matter, has a complex hierarchical structure that extends from the scale of cells down to the molecular level. Knowledge of the structural fundamentals of cellulose is relevant, not only for an understanding of plant life, but also for numerous technologies that use it as a raw material. The methods of computational physics are increasingly used to support experimental efforts in cellulose research. This thesis reports molecular and fluid dynamics simulations that address questions related to the pyrolytic degradation of cellulose and the aggregation and deaggregation of cellulose microfibrils. Cellulose pyrolysis involves hundreds of chemical reactions and volatile products, the description of which remains a formidable challenge. Here, we demonstrate the use of reactive force field methods for predicting mechanisms and kinetics of cellulose pyrolysis. We show that reactive molecular dynamics simulations can reproduce essential features of the degradation process, most notably its onset via glycosidic bond cleavage, and thus offer a means to complement quantum chemistry methods and experimental analytics. The aggregation of microfibrils is fundamental to the structural hierarchy of native cellulose and has direct implications for its processing into nanostructured forms. Here, we use atomistic simulations to elaborate on the effects of chemical modification on microfibril interactions. Our simulations reveal the sensitivity of the interaction to non-uniform substitution patterns, a feature that is not captured by continuous theoretical models. Our findings suggest a connection between uneven charge distribution and heterogeneity observed in disintegration experiments. We also investigate the structure of microfibril bundles, and their relationship to the bound water of the cell wall, using molecular dynamics simulations. The simulations predict the spontaneous formation of a twisted ribbon-like bundle with a twist rate compatible with recent experimental evidence. This also leads to a reasonable prediction for the amount of bound water, which consists of molecular water layers surrounding the fibrils, along with several other experimental indicators. Microfibril interactions also manifest themselves in the rheology of aqueous cellulose nanofibril suspensions. Here, we demonstrate the coordinated use of rheometry, printing experiments and computational fluid dynamics simulations in the development of cellulose-based hydrogels for wound dressing applications. One of our key findings is the inadequacy of rotational rheometry as a basis for models of printer head flow, and the consequent need for an alternative model building strategy.Selluloosa on kasvien soluseinän keskeinen rakennusaine. Se on ketjumainen makromolekyyli, jota esiintyy osittain kiteisissä, kuitumaisissa mikrofibrilleissä ja niiden kimpuissa. Tämä rakenteellinen hierarkia vaikuttaa niin kasvikunnan biologisiin prosesseihin kuin selluloosaa raaka-aineena hyödyntäviin teknologioihin. Laskennallisen fysiikan menetelmiä käytetään yhä enemmän kokeellisen työn apuvälineenä selluloosatutkimuksessa. Tässä väitöskirjassa sovelletaan atomistisia simulointimenetelmiä ja laskennallista virtausmekaniikkaa selluloosan nanorakenteen ja pyrolyysireaktioiden kuvaamiseen. Selluloosan pyrolyyttinen hajoaminen on monimutkainen kemiallinen prosessi, johon liittyy satoja tutkimuksellisesti avoimia reaktiopolkuja. Olemme tutkineet reaktiivisten voimakenttämenetelmien soveltuvuutta selluloosan pyrolyysireaktioiden ja niiden kinetiikan ennustamiseen. Tulostemme mukaan hajoamisprosessin keskeisiä piirteitä voidaan toistaa reaktiivisten molekyylidynaamisten simulointien avulla. Tämä pätee erityisesti selluloosan glukoosiyksiköiden välisen glykosidisidoksen hajoamiseen ja kyseisen reaktionopeuden lämpötilariippuvuuteen. Selluloosapohjaisten nanomateriaalien valmistus perustuu mikrofibrillien muodostamien kimppujen hajottamiseen, mihin voidaan vaikuttaa selluloosan kemiallisella muokkauksella. Atomistiset simulointimme tarkentavat aiempien teoreettisten mallien antamaa kuvaa mikrofibrillien välisistä vuorovaikutuksista. Mikrofibrillien väliset voimat ovat erityisen herkkiä niiden pinnoilla oleville varausjakaumille. Tämä selittää nanofibrillien valmistuksessa havaitun kokovaihtelun silloin, kun kemiallinen muokkaus on vain osittainen. Lisäksi olemme tutkineet mikrofibrillikimppujen rakenteen yhteyttä sitoutuneen veden määrään soluseinässä tai siitä prosessoidussa kuidussa. Molekyylidynaamiset simuloinnit ennustavat kimpulle kierteisen nauhamaisen rakenteen, jonka kiertymisjakso vastaa hyvin viimeaikaisia kokeellisia tuloksia. Samalla saadaan lähellä koetuloksia olevia ennusteita sitoutuneen veden määrästä ja useista muista suureista, kuten mikrofibrillien ominaispinta-alasta. Mikrofibrillien väliset vuorovaikutukset vaikuttavat myös nanoselluloosasuspensioiden virtauskäyttäytymiseen. 3D-tulostuksessa käytettäviä selluloosapohjaisia hydrogeeleja voidaan kehittää kuvaamalla niiden virtauskäyttäytymistä laskennallisella virtausmekaniikalla. Tällaisilla malleilla voidaan esimerkiksi etsiä riippuvuuksia hydrogeelin reologisten ominaisuuksien, tulostusprosessin parametrien ja tulostusjäljen välillä. Väitöstyössä tätä on tutkittu 3D-tulostettujen haavatyynyjen valmistuksessa