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The effects of regional climate change on space conditioning needs and the energy industry in the Great Lakes region
To date, studies of the effects of potential climate change on energy use and demand have been done on a macro scale or with coarse model data but it is regional climate change effects that will determine the behavior of energy users. The output from a 3-year simulation (both base case and doubled CO{sub 2} conditions) of the coupled NCAR CCM/MM4 regional (60 km resolution) climate modeling system is used to examine changes in average temperature and temperature variability on a regional scale, the impacts of such change on the need for space conditioning in the Great Lakes region, and the subsequent changes in energy demand. From these results, changes in heating and cooling degree days, and changes in consecutive days above or below various temperature thresholds were calculated. The model results indicate that the changed climate under doubled carbon dioxide conditions would have large impacts on energy use, although it is difficult to determine the balance between decreased heating needs and increased cooling needs. Biases are present in the temperature output of the modeling system. However, the model shows promise for regional studies and the recent successful coupling of a one-dimensional thermal eddy diffusion model to the NCAR modeling system to represent the Great Lakes promises that the next iteration of climate change output from the NCAR system will yield important results when applied to effects studies
Public rules about using and owning real estate in Cuba
The discussion on urban land continues to be absent in most of the specialized Cuban literature about planning and economic policies, despite its relevance. In very thorough essays about the present challenges and future development of the Cuban economy, nothing is said about the need for adequate public land policies and the implementation of public value capture mechanisms as part of the economic development of the country. The issue is complex, there is a void of almost half a century of not dealing with land value, but these reasons are not sufficient to justify the continued lack of vision in this direction, all the more when the Cuban cities are in desperate need to reverse the deterioration and stagnation that affects them.
The Cuban state determines the general rules under which citizens and organisations may own and use real estate. These are rules about property rights and about the limitations - in compliance with aspects such as state security, environmental and heritage protection, economic development, social equity and human and civil rights – on exercising those rights. In doing this, the Cuban state is no different from other states: most states make such rules and enforce them when necessary. What is particular to Cuba is the content of those rules. In particular, the Cuban state has the monopoly to perform land development and management. There are public institutions to plan and deal with all of these aspects, and there are no recognised real estate markets in the country.
Another important aspect is the utmost importance given to planning. But in spite of this, Cuban urban planners have rarely been certain of what will be built and where. The main reason for this may be that, despite the numerous master plans to study and anticipate development trends, most of the decisions ultimately involve top officials who envision the projects and establish the investment priorities according to the public interests or needs and the historical moment, irrespective of the plans.
This article intends to give a clear picture of how things are done in the public sector, how the administration works, and under which legal framework. I will look at the physical planning system and its importance in the location and implementation of land use, investment projects and housing programs, and at the legal procedures that include licenses for construction, demolition, habitat and other licenses for heritage conservation and redevelopment.
I will analyze the difficulties faced by the Cuban planning and legal system with respect to land and urban development, in the attempt to understand the limits imposed by the government on land and urban development, and I will explore to what extent those limits are to blame for the increasing irregularities and violations at all levels of the formal procedures for land and property.
I will also introduce the public and personal rights concerning housing, buying and selling, permutes, donations and other tenure alternatives; and clarify the civil responsibilities, namely types of ownership, properties, property registers and so forth in order to expose the opportunities and accessibility of the system but also its limitations
Competitor phenology as a social cue in breeding site selection
Predicting habitat quality is a major challenge for animals selecting a breeding patch, because it affects reproductive success. Breeding site selection may be based on previous experience, or on social information from the density and success of competitors with an earlier phenology. Variation in animal breeding phenology is often correlated with variation in habitat quality. Generally, animals breed earlier in high-quality habitats that allow them to reach a nutritional threshold required for breeding earlier or avoid nest predation. In addition, habitat quality may affect phenological overlap between species and thereby interspecific competition. Therefore, we hypothesized that competitor breeding phenology can be used as social cue by settling migrants to locate high-quality breeding sites. To test this hypothesis, we experimentally advanced and delayed hatching phenology of two resident tit species on the level of study plots and studied male and female settlement patterns of migratory pied flycatchers Ficedula hypoleuca. The manipulations were assigned at random in two consecutive years, and treatments were swapped between years in sites that were used in both years. In both years, males settled in equal numbers across treatments, but later arriving females avoided pairing with males in delayed phenology plots. Moreover, male pairing probability declined strongly with arrival date on the breeding grounds. Our results demonstrate that competitor phenology may be used to assess habitat quality by settling migrants, but we cannot pinpoint the exact mechanism (e.g. resource quality, predation pressure or competition) that has given rise to this pattern. In addition, we show that opposing selection pressures for arrival timing may give rise to different social information availabilities between sexes. We discuss our findings in the context of climate warming, social information use and the evolution of protandry in migratory animals
Ordering of the lamellar phase under a shear flow
The dynamics of a system quenched into a state with lamellar order and
subject to an uniform shear flow is solved in the large-N limit. The
description is based on the Brazovskii free-energy and the evolution follows a
convection-diffusion equation. Lamellae order preferentially with the normal
along the vorticity direction. Typical lengths grow as (with
logarithmic corrections) in the flow direction and logarithmically in the shear
direction. Dynamical scaling holds in the two-dimensional case while it is
violated in D=3
Phase separating binary fluids under oscillatory shear
We apply lattice Boltzmann methods to study the segregation of binary fluid
mixtures under oscillatory shear flow in two dimensions. The algorithm allows
to simulate systems whose dynamics is described by the Navier-Stokes and the
convection-diffusion equations. The interplay between several time scales
produces a rich and complex phenomenology. We investigate the effects of
different oscillation frequencies and viscosities on the morphology of the
phase separating domains. We find that at high frequencies the evolution is
almost isotropic with growth exponents 2/3 and 1/3 in the inertial (low
viscosity) and diffusive (high viscosity) regimes, respectively. When the
period of the applied shear flow becomes of the same order of the relaxation
time of the shear velocity profile, anisotropic effects are clearly
observable. In correspondence with non-linear patterns for the velocity
profiles, we find configurations where lamellar order close to the walls
coexists with isotropic domains in the middle of the system. For particular
values of frequency and viscosity it can also happen that the convective
effects induced by the oscillations cause an interruption or a slowing of the
segregation process, as found in some experiments. Finally, at very low
frequencies, the morphology of domains is characterized by lamellar order
everywhere in the system resembling what happens in the case with steady shear.Comment: 1 table and 12 figures in .gif forma
Complementarity of information sent via different bases
We discuss quantitatively the complementarity of information transmitted by a
quantum system prepared in a basis state in one out of several different
mutually unbiased bases (MUBs). We obtain upper bounds on the information
available to a receiver who has no knowledge of which MUB was chosen by the
sender. These upper bounds imply a complementarity of information encoded via
different MUBs and ultimately ensure the security in quantum key distribution
protocols.Comment: 9 pages, references adde
Formation of Subtropical Mode Water in a high-resolution ocean simulation of the Kuroshio Extension region
Author Posting. © Elsevier B.V., 2007. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Elsevier B.V. for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Ocean Modelling 17 (2007): 338-356, doi:10.1016/j.ocemod.2007.03.002.A high-resolution numerical model is used to examine the formation and variability of the North Pacific Subtropical
ModeWater (STMW) over a 3-year period. The STMW distribution is found to be highly variable in both
space and time, a characteristic often unexplored because of sparse observations or the use of coarse resolution
simulations. Its distribution is highly dependent on eddies, and where it was renewed during the previous winter.
Although the potential vorticity fluxes associated with down-front winds can be of the same order of magnitude
or even greater than the diabatic ones due to air-sea temperature differences, the latter dominate the potential
vorticity budget on regional and larger scales. Air-sea fluxes, however, are dominated by a few strong wind events,
emphasizing the importance of short time scales in the formation of mode waters. In the Kuroshio Extension
region, both advection and mixing play important roles to remove the STMW from the formation region.This work was sponsored by the National Science Foundation OCE-0220161 (S.J.) and OCE-0221781/0549225 (J.M.), the Office of Naval Research (J.M., M.M.), Department of Energy/CCPP (M.M.), and the Office of Science (BER), US Department of Energy, Grant No. DE-FG02-05ER64119 (J.M.)
The mechanism of disaster capitalism and the failure to build community resilience:learning from the 2009 earthquake in L'Aquila, Italy
This paper reflects on what materialised during recovery operations following the earthquake in L'Aquila, Italy, on 6 April 2009. Previous critiques have focused on the actions of the Government of Italy and the Department of Civil Protection (Protezione Civile), with little attention paid to the role of local authorities. This analysis sheds light on how the latter used emergency powers, the command-and-control approach, and top-down planning to manage the disaster context, especially in terms of removal of rubble, implementing safety measures, and allocating temporary accommodation. It discusses how these arrangements constituted the mechanism via which ‘disaster capitalism’ took hold at the local and national level, and how it violated human rights, produced environmental and social impacts, hindered local communities from learning, transforming, and building resilience, and facilitated disaster capitalism and corruption. To make the disaster risk reduction and resilience paradigm more effective, a shift from centralised civil protection to decentralised, inclusive community empowerment systems is needed
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