The Future of Electricity Generation in New Zealand

Increasing demand for electricity in New Zealand requires approximately 150 megawatts of new capacity to be installed annually. Rapidly increasing global prices for fossil fuels; the New Zealand Energy Strategy with its focus on renewable technologies; climate change policies; and a gradual shift from an energy constrained electricity system to one with capacity constraints are all factors underlying a change in the type of generation plant being installed and the location of that plant. This paper examines the likely future of the generation sector over the next 20-30 years. It is based on the work undertaken by the Electricity Commission in preparing its Statement of Opportunities, which contains scenarios describing how electricity may be generated in the future. These scenarios are produced using the Commission’s generation expansion model.Electricity, capacity expansion, Environmental Economics and Policy, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Increasing parental knowledge in treatment of childhood fever

Fever is the single most common symptom that causes parents to seek medical attention for their young children (Kramer, Naimark, & Leduc, 1985). Parental lack of knowledge regarding the management of pediatric fever plays a roll in this phenomenon. The problem addressed in this study is inappropriate parental usage of emergency treatment resources for the treatment of non-emergent childhood fevers. This study tested if providing direct and indirect information about childhood fever and its treatment resulted in a decrease of inappropriate emergency room visits for non-emergent pediatric febrile illnesses for a select population; A quasi-experimental design was used with a control and a treatment group. The Neuman Systems Model (1989) for nursing provided the theoretical base for this study; There was no significant change in the number of visits between the two groups, however, the participants that had read the educational handout had inappropriate emergent visits 25% of the time while those that did not read the handout had inappropriate visits nearly 80% of the time; Results of this study suggest that when parents are provided accurate information about pediatric fevers, they are less likely to seek emergent care for their child inappropriately

Numerical Studies of Iron Based Superconductors using Spin-Fermion Models

The iron pnictide and iron chalchogenide superconductors are studied numerically using classical Monte Carlo techniques to reproduce experimental data and make predictions about the nature of the relevant interactions. The focus will be using Spin-Fermion models in a classical approximation to explore the phase diagram and calculate important physical properties of these materials over a wide range of temperatures

Classification of Plot-Level Fire-Caused Tree Mortality in a Redwood Forest Using Digital Orthophotography and Lidar

Swanton Pacific Ranch is an approximately 1,300 ha working ranch and forest in northern Santa Cruz County, California, managed by California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly). On August 12, 2009, the Lockheed Fire burned 300 ha of forestland, 51% of the forested area on the property, with variable fire intensity and mortality. This study used existing inventory data from 47 permanent 0.08 ha (1/5 ac) plots to compare the accuracy of classifying mortality resulting from the fire using digital multispectral imagery and LiDAR. The percent mortality of trees at least 25.4 cm (10”) DBH was aggregated to three classes (0-25, 25-50, and 50-100%). Three separate Classification Analysis and Regression Tree (CART) models were created to classify plot mortality. The first used the best imagery predictor variable of those considered, the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) calculated from 2010 National Agricultural Imagery Program (NAIP) aerial imagery, with shadowed pixel values adjusted, and non-canopy pixels removed. The second used the same NDVI in combination with selected variables from post-fire LiDAR data collected in 2010. The third used the same NDVI in combination with selected variables from differenced LiDAR data calculated using post-fire LiDAR and pre-fire LiDAR collected in 2008. The imagery alone was 74% accurate; the imagery and post-fire LiDAR model was 85% accurate, while the imagery and differenced LiDAR model was 83% accurate. These findings indicate that remote sensing data can accurately estimate post-fire mortality, and that the addition of LiDAR data to imagery may yield only modest improvement

Pseudospectral Methods of Robust Optimal Motion Planning for Multi-aperture Space Systems with Motion and Vibration Compensation

For multi-body, flexible systems, the ability to achieve rapid reorientation maneuvers can be impacted by nonlinear dynamics and uncertainty in the model parameters impacting the ability to achieve an optimal trajectory computed using nominal parameter values. Trajectory sensitivity to parameter variations increases final pointing error and residual vibrational energy in the system. This manuscript explores using pseudospectral methods to generate robust optimal control trajectories minimizing trajectory sensitivity to parameter variations and derives maneuvers minimizing residual energy and pointing error. The robustness of open-loop optimal control is compared to a standard maneuver derived using traditional methods demonstrating the ability to simultaneously increase payload availability while minimizing final pointing error and system energy