Legal Aspects which Implement Good Practice Measures in the Management of Construction and Demolition Waste

The construction industry, one of the most important ones in the development of a country, generates unavoidable impacts on the environment. The social demand towards greater respect for the environment is a high and general outcry. Therefore, the construction industry needs to reduce the impact it produces. Proper waste management is not enough; we must take a further step in environmental management, where new measures need to be introduced for the prevention at source, such as good practices to promote recycling. Following the amendment of the legal frame applicable to Construction and Demolition Waste (C&D waste), important developments have been incorporated in European and International laws, aiming to promote the culture of reusing and recycling. This change of mindset, that is progressively taking place in society, is allowing for the consideration of C&D waste no longer as an unusable waste, but as a reusable material. The main objective of the work presented in this paper is to enhance C&D waste management systems through the development of preventive measures during the construction process. These measures concern all the agents intervening in the construction process as only the personal implication of all of them can ensure an efficient management of the C&D waste generated. Finally, a model based on preventive measures achieves organizational cohesion between the different stages of the construction process, as well as promoting the conservation of raw materials through the use and waste minimization. All of these in order to achieve a C&D waste management system, whose primary goal is zero waste generatio

Derivation of the quantum probability law from minimal non-demolition measurement

One more derivation of the quantum probability rule is presented in order to shed more light on the versatile aspects of this fundamental law. It is shown that the change of state in minimal quantum non-demolition measurement, also known as ideal measurement, implies the probability law in a simple way. Namely, the very requirement of minimal change of state, put in proper mathematical form, gives the well known Lueders formula, which contains the probability rule.Comment: 8 page

Quantum Non-demolition Detection of Single Microwave Photons in a Circuit

Thorough control of quantum measurement is key to the development of quantum information technologies. Many measurements are destructive, removing more information from the system than they obtain. Quantum non-demolition (QND) measurements allow repeated measurements that give the same eigenvalue. They could be used for several quantum information processing tasks such as error correction, preparation by measurement, and one-way quantum computing. Achieving QND measurements of photons is especially challenging because the detector must be completely transparent to the photons while still acquiring information about them. Recent progress in manipulating microwave photons in superconducting circuits has increased demand for a QND detector which operates in the gigahertz frequency range. Here we demonstrate a QND detection scheme which measures the number of photons inside a high quality-factor microwave cavity on a chip. This scheme maps a photon number onto a qubit state in a single-shot via qubit-photon logic gates. We verify the operation of the device by analyzing the average correlations of repeated measurements, and show that it is 90% QND. It differs from previously reported detectors because its sensitivity is strongly selective to chosen photon number states. This scheme could be used to monitor the state of a photon-based memory in a quantum computer.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, includes supplementary materia

Measurement and Ergodicity in Quantum Mechanics

The experimental realization of successive non-demolition measurements on single microscopic systems brings up the question of ergodicity in Quantum Mechanics (QM). We investigate whether time averages over one realization of a single system are related to QM averages over an ensemble of similarly prepared systems. We adopt a generalization of von Neumann model of measurement, coupling the system to $N$ "probes" --with a strength that is at our disposal-- and detecting the latter. The model parallels the procedure followed in experiments on Quantum Electrodynamic cavities. The modification of the probability of the observable eigenvalues due to the coupling to the probes can be computed analytically and the results compare qualitatively well with those obtained numerically by the experimental groups. We find that the problem is not ergodic, except in the case of an eigenstate of the observable being studied.Comment: In press in J. Phys. A: Math. Theo

Lessons learned from the largest tenure-mix operation in the world : right to buy in the United Kingdom

In the past few decades, urban regeneration policies have taken firm root in many Western European countries. Underlying these regeneration policies is a strong belief in the negative neighborhood effects of living in areas of concentrated poverty, often neighborhoods with a large share of social housing. In Europe, great importance is attached to creating a more diverse housing stock (in terms of tenure and dwelling types) as a means to establishing a more socially mixed neighborhood population. Mixed-housing strategies are embraced explicitly by governments in Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The idea is that mixing homeowners with social renters will create a more diverse socioeconomic mix in neighborhoods, removing the potential of negative neighborhood effects. By far the largest tenure-mixing operation in Europe is the Right to Buy (RTB) scheme in the United Kingdom. Since the 1970s, more than 2.7 million socially rented houses have sold at large discounts, mainly to sitting tenants. In this article, we synthesize the outcomes of RTB with regard to neighborhood effects: residualization, neighborhood stability, tenure and social mix, social interactions, and dwelling maintenance. Although we acknowledge substantial socioeconomic benefits of RTB for many individual residents, we find that the neighborhood outcomes of RTB are by no means solely beneficial.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Waste Reduction, Construction and Demolition Debris: Guide for Building, Construction and Environmental Professionals, Revised November 2008

This document is intended to lay the foundation for resource reduction strategies in new construction, renovation and demolition. If you have an innovative idea or information that you believe should be included in future updates of this manual please email Shelly Codner at [email protected] or Jan Loyson at [email protected]. Throughout this manual, we use the term “waste reduction” to define waste management initiatives that will result in less waste going to the landfill. In accordance with the waste management hierarchy these practices include reducing (waste prevention), reusing (deconstruction and salvage), recycling and renewing (making old things new again) - in that order. This manual will explain what these practices are and how to incorporate them into your projects