Der motorisierte Individualverkehr als Hauptursache der Stickoxid-Immissionsproblematik im Großraum Graz

Diese Arbeit behandelt das Problem der Stickoxidimmissionsproblematik im Großraum Graz. Die thematischen Ausführungen dieser Arbeit reichen von der topografischen Situation in Graz, der lokalen Verkehrssituation, dem Verkehrsnutzungsverhalten, über rechtliche und chemische Grundlagen der Stickoxide (NOx), bis hin zu Entwicklungen und Verteilungen der NOx Emissionen und -immissionen. Ein wichtiges Ergebnis der Untersuchung ist die stetige Verbesserung der Stickoxidemissionen und immissionen der Stadt in den letzten Jahren. Bei den Emissionen pro Jahr ist im Verkehrsbereich ein leichter Rückgang von etwa 4% seit dem Jahr 2003 zu verzeichnen (Stand 2011). Die Immissionen sind seit dem Jahr 2001 um etwa 25% gesunken (Station Graz-Nord, Stand 2013). Dies ist vor allem auf die fahrzeugtechnischen Fortschritte zurückzuführen, welche immer geringere Emissionen bei Neufahrzeugen ermöglichen. Bei vergangenen Überschreitungstagen sind fast immer zusätzliche klimatische Bedingungen ausschlaggebend, wie Inversionen, Windarmut, sowie das Einmischen von Ozon in die bodennahen Schichten. Überschreitungen der Grenzwerte finden ausschließlich in den Wintermonaten statt, da in dieser Zeit die NOx Belastung besonders hoch ist. Die Jahresmittelgrenzwerte wurden seit dem Jahr 2003 durchwegs überschritten, vor allem bei der Station Don-Bosco. Durch die ungünstige Lage der Station im Kreuzungsbereich, werden hohe Immissionen gemessen. Die Jahresmittelgrenzwerte können hier vermutlich auch in den nächsten Jahren nicht eingehalten werden. Der Bereich mit den höchsten NOx Emissionen ist der Verkehr mit einem Anteil von 46%. Der motorisierte Individualverkehr weist Emissionen von 696 t pro Jahr auf, der Lkw-Verkehr etwa 687 t pro Jahr und der Bereich ‚Industrie und Gewerbe‘ weist sogar 725 t NOx pro Jahr auf. Folglich ist der motorisierte Individualverkehr nicht die Hauptursache der NOx, bietet jedoch große Verbesserungspotenziale für die Luftgüte in Graz.The present thesis deals with the problem of the nitrogen oxide immissions in the city area of Graz. The thematic explanations of this thesis range from the topographical situation in Graz, the local traffic condition, the usage behavior of traffic, the legal and chemical fundamentals of nitrogen oxides (NOx), to the development and distribution of NOx emissions and immissions. An important result of the study is the continuous improvement of the emissions and immissions within the last years. The emissions per year got a slight decrease in the transport sector of about 4% since 2003 (as of 2011). The immissions decreased since 2001 by about 25% (measurement station Graz-Nord, as of 2013). This is mainly the result of the vehicle technology developments which enables lower emissions of new vehicles. In recent days where the levels were exceeded, the climatic conditions were almost always critical, such as inversions, a lack of wind, as well as the incorporation of ozone in the near-surface layers. Exceeded limits occur exclusively during the winter months, as the NOx pollution is particularly high at this time. The mean annual limits have always been exceeded since 2003, especially in the measurement station Don-Bosco. Due to the unfavorable location of the station in the intersection area, high emissions are measured. The annual mean values can probably not be complied in Don-Bosco within the next years. The group with the highest NOx emissions is the transport sector with a share of 46%. Private motorized transport has emissions of 696 tons per year, the truck traffic approximately 687 tons per year and the ‘industrial and commercial sector even 725 tons NOx per year. Therefor the private motorized transport is not the main source of NOx, but it offers a good potential for enhancing the air quality in Graz.vorgelegt von Bernhard MittelbachAbweichender Titel laut Übersetzung der Verfasserin/des VerfassersZsfassungen in dt. und engl. SpracheGraz, Univ., Masterarb., 2015(VLID)37863

Die Erwartungen der Wirtschaft für 2019

Die deutsche Volkswirtschaft befindet sich in einer der längsten Aufschwungphasen der Nachkriegszeit. Der Sachverständigenrat für Wirtschaft hat für 2018 ein Wachstum des Bruttoinlandsprodukts von 1,6 % und für 2019 von 1,5 % prognostiziert. Alle Wirtschaftsbereiche profitierten von der guten wirtschaftlichen Lage. Probleme hatte aber die Automobilindustrie. Sie steht vor tiefgreifenden Veränderungen und wird sowohl vom Brexit, als auch von der US-Handelspolitik am stärksten beeinträchtigt. Die verschiedenen Wirtschaftsbereiche wünschen sich von der Bundesregierung niedrigere Steuern, Investitionen in die digitale Infrastruktur sowie höhere Ausgaben für Forschung und Entwicklung

Evaluating Health Co-Benefits of Climate Change Mitigation in Urban Mobility

There is growing recognition that implementation of low-carbon policies in urban passenger transport has near-term health co-benefits through increased physical activity and improved air quality. Nevertheless, co-benefits and related cost reductions are often not taken into account in decision processes, likely because they are not easy to capture. In an interdisciplinary multi-model approach we address this gap, investigating the co-benefits resulting from increased physical activity and improved air quality due to climate mitigation policies for three urban areas. Additionally we take a (macro-)economic perspective, since that is the ultimate interest of policy-makers. Methodologically, we link a transport modelling tool, a transport emission model, an emission dispersion model, a health model and a macroeconomic Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model to analyze three climate change mitigation scenarios. We show that higher levels of physical exercise and reduced exposure to pollutants due to mitigation measures substantially decrease morbidity and mortality. Expenditures are mainly born by the public sector but are mostly offset by the emerging co-benefits. Our macroeconomic results indicate a strong positive welfare effect, yet with slightly negative GDP and employment effects. We conclude that considering economic co-benefits of climate change mitigation policies in urban mobility can be put forward as a forceful argument for policy makers to take action

Non-interactive Zero Knowledge Proofs in the Random Oracle Model

The Fiat-Shamir (FS) transform is a well known and widely used technique to convert any constant-round public-coin honest-verifier zero-knowledge (HVZK) proof or argument system CIPC=(Prov,Ver) in a non-interactive zero-knowledge (NIZK) argument system NIZK=(NIZK.Prove, NIZK.Verify). The FS transform is secure in the random oracle (RO) model and is extremely efficient: it adds an evaluation of the RO for every message played by Ver. While a major effort has been done to attack the soundness of the transform when the RO is instantiated with a ``secure'' hash function, here we focus on a different limitation of the FS transform that exists even when there is a secure instantiation of the random oracle: the soundness of NIZK holds against polynomial-time adversarial provers only. Therefore even when CIPC is a proof system, NIZK is only an argument system. In this paper we propose a new transform from 3-round public-coin HVZK proof systems for several practical relations to NIZK proof systems in the RO model. Our transform outperforms the FS transform protecting the honest verifier from unbounded adversarial provers with no restriction on the number of RO queries. The protocols our transform can be applied to are the ones for proving membership to the range of a one-way group homomorphism as defined by [Maurer - Design, Codes and Cryptography 2015] except that we additionally require the function to be endowed with a trapdoor and other natural properties. For instance, we obtain new efficient instantiations of NIZK proofs for relations related to quadratic residuosity and the RSA function. As a byproduct, with our transform we obtain essentially for free the first efficient non-interactive zap (i.e., 1-round non-interactive witness indistinguishable proof system for several practical languages in the non-programmable RO model and in an ideal-PUF model. Our approach to NIZK proofs can be seen as an abstraction of the celebrated work of [Feige, Lapidot and Shamir - FOCS 1990]

Non-interactive zero knowledge proofs in the random oracle model

The Fiat-Shamir (FS) transform is a well known and widely used technique to convert any constant-round public-coin honest-verifier zero-knowledge (HVZK) proof or argument system CIPC=(Prov,Ver) in a non-interactive zero-knowledge (NIZK) argument system NIZK=(NIZK.Prove, NIZK.Verify). The FS transform is secure in the random oracle (RO) model and is extremely efficient: it adds an evaluation of the RO for every message played by Ver. While a major effort has been done to attack the soundness of the transform when the RO is instantiated with a ``secure'' hash function, here we focus on a different limitation of the FS transform that exists even when there is a secure instantiation of the random oracle: the soundness of NIZK holds against polynomial-time adversarial provers only. Therefore even when CIPC is a proof system, NIZK is only an argument system. In this paper we propose a new transform from 3-round public-coin HVZK proof systems for several practical relations to NIZK proof systems in the RO model. Our transform outperforms the FS transform protecting the honest verifier from unbounded adversarial provers with no restriction on the number of RO queries. The protocols our transform can be applied to are the ones for proving membership to the range of a one-way group homomorphism as defined by [Maurer - Design, Codes and Cryptography 2015] except that we additionally require the function to be endowed with a trapdoor and other natural properties. For instance, we obtain new efficient instantiations of NIZK proofs for relations related to quadratic residuosity and the RSA function. As a byproduct, with our transform we obtain essentially for free the first efficient non-interactive zap (i.e., 1-round non-interactive witness indistinguishable proof system for several practical languages in the non-programmable RO model and in an ideal-PUF model. Our approach to NIZK proofs can be seen as an abstraction of the celebrated work of [Feige, Lapidot and Shamir - FOCS 1990]