Essays on market design and regulation in electricity systems

This thesis discusses market design and regulation in electricity systems, focusing on the information exchange of the regulated grid firm and the generation firms as well as the regulation of the grid firm. In the first chapter, an economic framework is developed to consistently analyze different market designs and the information exchange between the grid firm and the generation firms. Perfect competition between the generation firms and perfect regulation of the grid firm is assumed. A numerical algorithm is developed and its feasibility demonstrated on a large-scale problem. The effects of different market designs for the Central Western European (CWE) region until 2030 are analyzed. In the second chapter, the consequences of restricted grid expansion within the current market design in the CWE region until 2030 are analyzed. In the third chapter the assumption of efficient markets is modified. The focus of the analysis is then, whether and how inefficiencies in information availability and processing affect different market designs. For different parameter settings, nodal and zonal pricing are compared regarding their welfare in the spot and forward market. In the fourth chapter, information asymmetries between the regulator and the regulated firm are analyzed. The optimal regulatory strategy for a firm, providing one output with two substitutable inputs, is defined. Thereby, one input and the absolute quantity of inputs is not observable for the regulator. The result is then compared to current regulatory approaches

Individualized Surgery: Gamma-Probe-Guided Lymphadenectomy in Patients with Clinically Enlarged Lymph Node Metastases from Melanomas

BACKGROUND: The value of a preoperative lymphoscintigraphy in melanoma patients with clinically evident regional lymph node metastases has not been studied. Therapeutic lymph node dissection (TLND) is regarded as the clinical standard, but the appropriate extent of TLND is controversial in all lymphatic basins. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Of the 115 consecutive patients with surgery on palpable lymph node metastases, 34 received a pre-operative lymphoscintigraphy. Lymphatic drainage to a second nodal basin outside the clinically involved basin was found in 15 cases. In 13 patients, the ectopic tumor-draining lymph nodes were excised as in a sentinel node biopsy. The lymph nodes from the TLND specimens were postoperatively separated and classified as either radioactive or non-radioactive. RESULTS: A total of 493 lymph nodes were examined pathologically. The largest macrometastasis maintained the ability to take up radiotracer in 77% of cases. Radioactively labeled lymph nodes carried a higher risk of being involved with metastasis. The proportions of tumor involvement for radioactive and non-radioactive lymph nodes were 44.5 and 16.9%, respectively (P=0.00002). Of the 13 ectopic nodal basins surgically explored, six harbored clinically occult metastases. CONCLUSION: In patients undergoing TLND for palpable metastases, tumor-draining lymph nodes in a second, ectopic nodal basin should be excised, because they could be affected by occult metastasis. With respect to radioactive lymph nodes situated within the nodal basin of the macrometastasis but beyond the borders of a less-radical lymphadenectomy, further studies are needed

Future of nuclear fission theory

There has been much recent interest in nuclear fission, due in part to a new appreciation of its relevance to astrophysics, stability of superheavy elements, and fundamental theory of neutrino interactions. At the same time, there have been important developments on a conceptual and computational level for the theory. The promising new theoretical avenues were the subject of a workshop held at the University of York in October 2019; this report summarises its findings and recommendations.ASU and CS would like to thank Prof. David Hinde for useful discussions regarding the neutron clock. This work was partially supported by the STFC Grant Nos. ST/M006433/1, ST/P003885/1, and ST/P005314/1, by the Polish National Science Centre under Contract Nos. 2018/31/B/ST2/02220, 2018/30/Q/ST2/00185, and 2017/27/B/ST2/02792; by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP19K03861; by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Nos. 11875225 and 11790325; by the U.S. Department of Energy under Grant Nos. DE-SC0013847, DE-SC0019521, DE-SC0013365, DE-SC0018083, DE-NA0003885, and DE-SC0019521; by Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) Grant No. PGC2018-094583-B-I00; by the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique (F.R.S.-FNRS) and the Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek—Vlaanderen (FWO) under the EOS Project nr O022818F; and by the Australian Research Council Grant No. DP190100256. This work was partly performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344 (NS). The work was also supported by the US Department of Energy through the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Los Alamos National Laboratory is operated by Triad National Security, LLC, for the National Nuclear Security Administration of U.S. Department of Energy (Contract No. 89233218CNA000001). This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 654002. JR wishes to acknowledge the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics in Kyoto for its generous support of his participation is this project

Future of nuclear fission theory

There has been much recent interest in nuclear fission, due in part to a new appreciation of its relevance to astrophysics, stability of superheavy elements, and fundamental theory of neutrino interactions. At the same time, there have been important developments on a conceptual and computational level for the theory. The promising new theoretical avenues were the subject of a workshop held at the University of York in October 2019; this report summarises its findings and recommendations.Peer reviewe

Design and baseline characteristics of the finerenone in reducing cardiovascular mortality and morbidity in diabetic kidney disease trial

Background: Among people with diabetes, those with kidney disease have exceptionally high rates of cardiovascular (CV) morbidity and mortality and progression of their underlying kidney disease. Finerenone is a novel, nonsteroidal, selective mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist that has shown to reduce albuminuria in type 2 diabetes (T2D) patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) while revealing only a low risk of hyperkalemia. However, the effect of finerenone on CV and renal outcomes has not yet been investigated in long-term trials. Patients and Methods: The Finerenone in Reducing CV Mortality and Morbidity in Diabetic Kidney Disease (FIGARO-DKD) trial aims to assess the efficacy and safety of finerenone compared to placebo at reducing clinically important CV and renal outcomes in T2D patients with CKD. FIGARO-DKD is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group, event-driven trial running in 47 countries with an expected duration of approximately 6 years. FIGARO-DKD randomized 7,437 patients with an estimated glomerular filtration rate >= 25 mL/min/1.73 m(2) and albuminuria (urinary albumin-to-creatinine ratio >= 30 to <= 5,000 mg/g). The study has at least 90% power to detect a 20% reduction in the risk of the primary outcome (overall two-sided significance level alpha = 0.05), the composite of time to first occurrence of CV death, nonfatal myocardial infarction, nonfatal stroke, or hospitalization for heart failure. Conclusions: FIGARO-DKD will determine whether an optimally treated cohort of T2D patients with CKD at high risk of CV and renal events will experience cardiorenal benefits with the addition of finerenone to their treatment regimen. Trial Registration: EudraCT number: 2015-000950-39; ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02545049

Regulation of non-marketed outputs and substitutable inputs

We study the regulation of a monopolistic firm that provides a non-marketed output based on multiple substitutable inputs. The regulator is able to observe the effectiveness of the provision, but faces information asymmetries with respect to the efficiency of the firm's activities. Specifically, we consider a setting where one input and the output are observable, while another input and related costs are not. Multi-dimensional information asymmetries are introduced by discrete distributions for the functional form of the marginal rate of substitution between the inputs as well as for the input costs. For this novel setting, we investigate the theoretically optimal Bayesian regulation mechanism. We find that the first-best solution cannot be obtained in case of shadow costs of public funding. The second-best solution implies separation of the most efficient type with first-best input levels, and upwards distorted (potentially bunched) observable input levels for all other types. Moreover, we compare these results to a simpler non-Bayesian approach, i.e., a single pooling contract, and hence, bridge the gap between the academic discussion and regulatory practice. In a numerical simulation, we identify certain conditions in which a single contract non-Bayesian regulation can indeed get close to the second-best solution of the Bayesian menu of contracts regulation