Determining the impact of regulatory policy on UK gas use using Bayesian analysis on publicly available data

This paper presents a novel method to analyse policy performance, using the example of legislation in the UK to require domestic boilers fitted since 1 April 2005 to be condensing. A technological uptake model based on the logistic equation is combined with four physical and economic models; Bayesian techniques are used for data analysis. Projections of energy savings are presented and the impact of different policy implementation dates investigated

‘Hitting the target and missing the point’: Analysis of air permeability data for new UK dwellings and what it reveals about the testing procedure

Airtightness testing is widely undertaken to assess the as-built performance of dwellings, in support of achieving energy and ventilation strategies. Mandatory schemes operate in some countries, such as the UK, to ensure that dwellings are built in accordance with their design air permeability. However, testing is only useful if the results give a true picture of the airtightness of the building. Previous literature has investigated factors which could influence airtightness test results but has not questioned data quality, despite the pressure on builders to achieve design targets. This paper presents air permeability results from the largest UK dataset, comprising 144,024 dwellings tested under the Air Tightness Testing and Measurement Association (ATTMA) scheme. The data show an unexpected distribution of test results with narrow peaks just within test targets. Such results were not expected theoretically but do reflect findings in other fields where performance-based targets are in place. Such a close match between design and tested airtightness may be achieved by remedial works taking place during the test rather than afterwards. Recommendations are made with respect to quality assurance systems, design guidance and on-site sealing practices to increase the likelihood of long-term airtight buildings being constructed first time

Detailed analysis of data from heat pumps installed via the Renewable Heat Premium Payment Scheme

The RHPP policy provided subsidies for private householders, Registered social landlords and communities to install renewable heat measures in residential properties. Eligible measures included air and ground-source heat pumps, biomass boilers and solar thermal. Around 18,000 heat pumps were installed via this scheme. DECC funded a detailed monitoring campaign, which covered 700 heat pumps (around 4% of the total). The aim of this monitoring campaign was to assess the efficiencies of the heat pumps and to estimate the carbon and bill savings and amount of renewable heat generated. Data was collected from 31/10/2013 to 31/03/2015. This report represents the analysis of this data and represents the most complete and reliable data in-situ residential heat pump performance in the UK to date

Cohort Profile: The Health Survey for England

To monitor the health of the public in England, UK, the Central Health Monitoring Unit within the UK Department of Health commissioned an annual health examination survey, which became known as the Health Survey for England (HSE). The first survey was completed in 1991. The HSE covers all of England and is a nationally representative sample of those residing at private residential addresses. Each survey year consists of a new sample of private residential addresses and people. The HSE collects detailed information on mental and physical health, health-related behaviour, and objective physical and biological measures in relation to demographic and socio-economic characteristics of people aged 16 years and over at private residential addresses. There are two parts to the HSE; an interviewer visit, to conduct an interview and measure height and weight, then a nurse visit, to carry out further measurements and take biological samples. Since 1994, survey participants aged 16 years and over have been asked for consent to follow-up through linkage to mortality and cancer registration data, and from 2003, to the Hospital Episode Statistics database, thus converting annual cross-sectional survey data into a longitudinal study. Annual survey data (1994–2009) are available through the UK Data Archive

Accelerator Mass Spectrometry at Arizona: Geochronology of the Climatic Record and Connections with the Ocean

There are many diverse uses of accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS). 14C studies at our laboratory include much research related to paleoclimate, with 14C as a tracer of past changes in environmental conditions as observed in corals, marine sediments, and many terrestrial records. Terrestrial records can also show the influence of oceanic oscillations, whether they are short term, such as ENSO (El Niño/Southern Oscillation), or on the millennial time scale. In tracer applications, we have developed the use of 129I as well as 14C as tracers for nuclear pollution studies around radioactive waste dump sites, in collaboration with IAEA. We discuss some applications carried out in Tucson, AZ, for several of these fields and hope to give some idea of the breadth of these studies

Inferring the thermal resistance and effective thermal mass of a wall using frequent temperature and heat flux measurements

Evaluating how much heat is lost through external walls is a key requirement for building energy simulators and is necessary for quality assurance and successful decision making in policy making and building design, construction and refurbishment. Heat loss can be estimated using the temperature differences between the inside and outside air and an estimate of the thermal transmittance (U-value) of the wall. Unfortunately the actual U-value may be different from those values obtained using assumptions about the materials, their properties and the structure of the wall after a cursory visual inspection. In-situ monitoring using thermometers and heat flux plates enables more accurate characterisation of the thermal properties of walls in their context. However, standard practices require that the measurements are carried out in winter over a two-week period to significantly reduce the dynamic effects of the wall's thermal mass from the data. A novel combination of a lumped thermal mass model, together with Bayesian statistical analysis is presented to derive estimates of the U-value and effective thermal mass. The method needs only a few days of measurements, provides an estimate of the effective thermal mass and could potentially be used in summer

"Author! Author!" : Shakespeare and biography

Original article can be found at: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t714579626~db=all Copyright Informa / Taylor & Francis Group. DOI: 10.1080/17450910902764454Since 1996, not a year has passed without the publication of at least one Shakespeare biography. Yet for many years the place of the author in the practice of understanding literary works has been problematized, and even on occasions eliminated. Criticism reads the “works”, and may or may not refer to an author whose “life” contributed to their meaning. Biography seeks the author in the works, the personality that precedes the works and gives them their characteristic shape and meaning. But the form of literary biography addresses the unusual kind of “life” that puts itself into “works”, and this is particularly challenging where the “works” predominate massively over the salient facts of the “life”. This essay surveys the current terrain of Shakespeare biography, and considers the key questions raised by the medium: can we know anything of Shakespeare's “personality” from the facts of his life and the survival of his works? What is the status of the kind of speculation that inevitably plays a part in biographical reconstruction? Are biographers in the end telling us as much about themselves as they tell us about Shakespeare?Peer reviewe