Carbon Emission Trading Scheme and the Aviation Sector: An experimental analysis on allocation of allowances

The European Union has proposed a Directive to include aviation activities in the Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) in 2012. The allowance allocation method which will be put in place is relatively easy to implement with low administration cost. However, careful scrutiny suggests that the allocation method does not favor airlines with high energy efficiency. This study proposes an alternative allowance allocation method which is fairer in that it rewards energy efficient airlines. Further, the new method is easy to implement with low administrative cost. The Cournot model serves as the theoretical foundation upon which the experiments are designed to simulate the aviation industry under the ETS. The equilibrium is calculated for each allowance allocation method. Results from experiments suggest consistency with theoretical outcomes.

Numerical investigation of the thermal stratification in cryogenic tanks subjected to wall heat flux

The flow pattern and thermal stratification of a cryogenic cylindrical tank are numerically studied. The tank sidewall is subjected to either a uniform heat-flux or two discrete levels of uniform heat-flux at the upper and lower halves of the tank wall. The tank bottom is kept at a constant temperature controlled by the heat exchanger of a thermodynamic vent system. The tank pressure is also assumed constant resulting in a constant saturation temperature at the interface which is higher than the tank bottom temperature. The effects of vapor motion and vapor superheat on the mass and heat transfer processes at the interface are assumed negligible such that the calculations of liquid region can be decoupled from the vapor region. Dimensionless steady-state conservation equations are solved by a finite-difference method. The effects of modified Rayleigh number, Prandtl number, tank aspect ratio, wall heat-flux parameter, and wall heat-flux distribution on the liquid velocity and temperature fields are investigated. Also, their effects on the rate of heat transfer through the interface and the tank bottom are examined

Electrocatalysis of fuel cell reactions: Investigation of alternate electrolytes

Oxygen reduction and transport properties of the electrolyte in the phosphoric acid fuel cell are studied. The areas covered were: (1) development of a theoretical expression for the rotating ring disk electrode technique; (2) determination of the intermediate reaction rate constants for oxygen reduction on platinum in phosphoric acid electrolyte; (3) determination of oxygen reduction mechanism in trifluoreomethanesulfonic acid (TFMSA) which was considered as an alternate electrolyte for the acid fuel cells; and (4) the measurement of transport properties of the phosphoric acid electrolyte at high concentrations and temperatures

Efficient fault diagnosis of helicopter gearboxes

Application of a diagnostic system to a helicopter gearbox is presented. The diagnostic system is a nonparametric pattern classifier that uses a multi-valued influence matrix (MVIM) as its diagnostic model and benefits from a fast learning algorithm that enables it to estimate its diagnostic model from a small number of measurement-fault data. To test this diagnostic system, vibration measurements were collected from a helicopter gearbox test stand during accelerated fatigue tests and at various fault instances. The diagnostic results indicate that the MVIM system can accurately detect and diagnose various gearbox faults so long as they are included in training

Electrocatalysis of fuel cell reactions: Investigation of alternate electrolytes

Oxygen reduction and transport properties of the electrolyte in the phosphoric acid fuel cell are studied. A theoretical expression for the rotating ring-disk electrode technique; the intermediate reaction rate constants for oxygen reduction on platinum in phosphoric acid electrolyte; oxygen reduction mechanism in trifluoromethanesulfonic acid (TFMSA), considered as an alternate electrolyte for the acid fuel cells; and transport properties of the phosphoric acid electrolyte at high concentrations and temperatures are covered

Rotor Eddy-Current loss in permanent-magnet brushless AC machines

This paper analyzes rotor eddy-current loss in permanent-magnet brushless ac machines. It is shown that analytical or finite-element techniques published in literature for predicting rotor eddy-current loss using space harmonic based approaches may not yield correct results in each magnet segment when one magnet-pole is circumferentially segmented into more than two pieces. It is also shown that the eddy-current loss in each equally segmented piece may differ by a large margin, which implies that the temperature distribution in the magnets will be uneven and the risk of demagnetization has to be carefully assessed. The theoretical derivation is validated by time-stepped transient finite-element analysis

Fourth Order Algorithms for Solving the Multivariable Langevin Equation and the Kramers Equation

We develop a fourth order simulation algorithm for solving the stochastic Langevin equation. The method consists of identifying solvable operators in the Fokker-Planck equation, factorizing the evolution operator for small time steps to fourth order and implementing the factorization process numerically. A key contribution of this work is to show how certain double commutators in the factorization process can be simulated in practice. The method is general, applicable to the multivariable case, and systematic, with known procedures for doing fourth order factorizations. The fourth order convergence of the resulting algorithm allowed very large time steps to be used. In simulating the Brownian dynamics of 121 Yukawa particles in two dimensions, the converged result of a first order algorithm can be obtained by using time steps 50 times as large. To further demostrate the versatility of our method, we derive two new classes of fourth order algorithms for solving the simpler Kramers equation without requiring the derivative of the force. The convergence of many fourth order algorithms for solving this equation are compared.Comment: 19 pages, 2 figure

Terahertz magneto-spectroscopy of transient plasmas in semiconductors

Using synchronized near-infrared (NIR) and terahertz (THz) lasers, we have performed picosecond time-resolved THz spectroscopy of transient carriers in semiconductors. Specifically, we measured the temporal evolution of THz transmission and reflectivity after NIR excitation. We systematically investigated transient carrier relaxation in GaAs and InSb with varying NIR intensities and magnetic fields. Using this information, we were able to determine the evolution of the THz absorption to study the dynamics of photocreated carriers. We developed a theory based on a Drude conductivity with time-dependent density and density-dependent scattering lifetime, which successfully reproduced the observed plasma dynamics. Detailed comparison between experimental and theoretical results revealed a linear dependence of the scattering frequency on density, which suggests that electron-electron scattering is the dominant scattering mechanism for determining the scattering time. In InSb, plasma dynamics was dramatically modified by the application of a magnetic field, showing rich magneto-reflection spectra, while GaAs did not show any significant magnetic field dependence. We attribute this to the small effective masses of the carriers in InSb compared to GaAs, which made the plasma, cyclotron, and photon energies all comparable in the density, magnetic field, and wavelength ranges of the current study.Comment: 8 pages, 9 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

ON DEMAND: CROSS-COUNTRY EVIDENCE FROM COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE ASSET MARKETS

Using over 25 years of quarterly U.S. and Japanese time series data, this paper examines the determinants of demand for an important class of real assets: commercial real estate. We specify a structural model of market equilibrium that considers direct effects of real investment on built asset price. Our empirical findings are consistent across countries and produce several new results. First, we find that real investment exerts a significant positive direct effect on asset price, which in turn feeds back to impact investment decisions. Second, idiosyncratic risk is found to be strongly positively related to asset price, and to complement supply effects. Third, systematic risk is priced as expected, where the strength of the relation between asset price and systematic risk is found to be higher than in previous studies of capital asset prices. Fourth, lagged values of price determinants (of up to two years) are consistently important in real asset demand estimation. Alternative explanations for our findings are analyzed and discussed. Implications for asset pricing model specification and interpretation are also considered.equity REIT; IPO; interest-rate sensitivity; risk-adjusted return performance