Adaptation to climate change: Air-conditioning and the role of remittances

Do remittances improve the ability of households to adapt to global warming? We try to answer this question by studying the behaviours of households in Mexico, a country that experiences a large and stable flow of remittances. Using an instrumental variable approach, we find an important role of remittances in the climate adaptation process. Remittances are used for adopting air-conditioning, which is an important cooling device for responding to high temperatures and to maintain thermal comfort at home. We exploit climate and income heterogeneity by showing that large differences exist in the use of remittances for climate adaptation between coastal and inland regions, as well as among different income groups. We conclude by quantifying the overall increase in welfare that households attain by adopting air-conditioning

Effects of environmental colour on mood: a wearable life colour capture device

Colour is everywhere in our daily lives and impacts things like our mood, yet we rarely take notice of it. One method of capturing and analysing the predominant colours that we encounter is through visual lifelogging devices such as the SenseCam. However an issue related to these devices is the privacy concerns of capturing image level detail. Therefore in this work we demonstrate a hardware prototype wearable camera that captures only one pixel - of the dominant colour prevelant in front of the user, thus circumnavigating the privacy concerns raised in relation to lifelogging. To simulate whether the capture of dominant colour would be sufficient we report on a simulation carried out on 1.2 million SenseCam images captured by a group of 20 individuals. We compare the dominant colours that different groups of people are exposed to and show that useful inferences can be made from this data. We believe our prototype may be valuable in future experiments to capture colour correlated associated with an individual's mood

Laparoscopic hyperthermic isolated limb perfusion a new minimally invasive approach for HILP

Hyperthermic isolated limb perfusion (HILP) represents a limb-sparing treatment for unresectable soft tissue sarcoma (STS) of the extremities with substantial complete response rates. HILP often provides good functional limb preservation, hence a significant improvement also in terms of quality of life of the patient. Notwithstanding these clear advantages, the traditional technique is still hindered by relatively high post-operative morbidity.We treated a 78-year-old female with unresectable angiosarcoma of the left leg using a new surgical approach: an entirely laparoscopic HILP.No conversion from laparoscopic to "open" surgery was necessary. Since no abdominal muscle section was performed, post-operative pain was low and easily manageable; early mobilisation and early discharge were achieved. Patient developed moderate toxicity, which resolved spontaneously within 3-4 weeks, with complete return to normal daily activities after 30 d. Complete clinical response with preservation of leg function was obtained.We describe for the first time an entirely laparoscopic HILP. Demonstration of this technique's efficacy and safety on a large series of patients is clearly necessary but its therapeutic efficacy appears to be comparable to the standard technique. Furthermore, laparoscopic HILP has shown low post-operative morbidity: no wound complications, mild and easily manageable post-operative pain and early discharge from the hospital and early resuming of daily activities

MEMS based electrochemical process for fabrication of laminated micro-inductors on silicon

Soft metallic magnetic alloys (such as Co, Ni and Fe based alloys) have been extensively used as core material in integrated inductors and transformers for DC–DC conversion. Although these materials have excellent soft magnetic properties such as high saturation flux density, low coercivity and high permeability; high electronic conductivity makes them susceptible to eddy current losses. As a result, core material thickness is often limited by the skin depth which in turn reduces the inductance density. Laminated magnetic films, where the active layers are separated by a dielectric film can increase the overall core thickness without compromising on its power handling capability. In this work, a CMOS compatible electrochemical-resist-electrochemical based core lamination deposition technique is demonstrated whereby a laminated top magnetic core is fabricated with a self-assembled and selective metallization process on the top SU-8 passivation layer with 2.5 μm Ni81Fe19. The process is site-selective, shows uniform deposition, has excellent step coverage and ideal for metallization of recessed regions in MEMS devices. Moreover, a high frequency measurement of laminated structure suggests uniform permeability for ~ 500 MHz applications

Intensive and extensive margins of the peak load: Measuring adaptation with mixed frequency panel data

In this work we investigate the response of daily electricity peak load to daily maximum temperatures across states in Europe and India. We propose a method that decomposes short- from medium/long-run effects, retains the high frequency nature of the load-weather covariation and treats economic growth as a modulating factor. By simultaneously exploiting variation in unexpected daily weather anomalies and decade-long climatic changes in each location we decompose transitory - intensive margin - adjustments from permanent - extensive margin - adjustments. We find that the shocks over the long-run differ substantially from the short-run dynamics. Furthermore, we find evidence that per capita income modulates the adjustments over the short- and long-run. We project that in response to climate change around 2050 the peak load may increase by up to 20%-30% in Southern Europe and in several states in India, depending on the degree of warming and the evolution of socio-economic conditions. Even with a limited scope to two world regions, we identify that the structure of the economy and differences in future income growth matter in shaping the adaptation to climate change. Our decomposition allows to identify how future weather anomalies can further amplify the relative increase associated to the shift in the climate norm. Assuming that the interannual variability of maximum temperatures follows the distribution observed in the past, we find a doubling of the impacts of climate change during the summer in Europe. Uncertainty around the distribution of future weather anomalies may lead to further unexpected peak load amplifications. Our results have important policy implications for power systems’ generation capacity, transmission and storage, as we show that the challenges to accommodate the peak load in days with extreme temperatures may substantially increase already around mid-century

Air-conditioning adoption and electricity demand highlight climate change mitigation–adaptation tradeoffs

We elucidate mid-century climate change impacts on electricity demand accounting for endogenous adoption of residential air-conditioning (AC) in affluent, cooler countries in Europe, and in poorer, hotter states in India. By 2050, in a high-warming scenario (SSP585) AC prevalence grows twofold in Europe and fourfold in India, reaching around 40% in both regions. We document a mitigation adaptation tradeoff: AC expansion reduces daily heat exposures by 150 million and 3.8 billion person degree-days (PDDs), but increases annual electricity demand by 34 TWh and 168 TWh in Europe and India, respectively (corresponding to 2% and 15% of today's consumption). The increase in adoption and use of AC would result in an additional 130 MMTCO2, of which 120 MMTCO2 in India alone, if the additional electricity generated were produced with today's power mix. The tradeoff varies geographically and across income groups: a one PDD reduction in heat exposure in Europe versus India necessitates five times more electricity (0.53 kWh vs 0.1 kWh) and two times more emissions (0.16 kgCO(2) vs 0.09 kgCO(2)), on average. The decomposition of demand drivers offers important insights on how such tradeoff can be moderated through policies promoting technology-based and behavioral based adaptation strategies

Quantification of regulating ecosystem services provided by weeds in annual cropping systems using a systematic map approach

Cian Blaix received a PhD grant from the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna in Pisa in the International PhD Programme on AgrobiodiversityEcosystem services have received increasing attention in life sciences, but only a limited amount of quantitative data are available concerning the ability of weeds to provide these services. Following an expert focus group on this topic, a systematic search for articles displaying evidence of weeds providing regulating ecosystem services was performed, resulting in 129 articlesPostprint (updated version

Alleviating inequality in climate policy costs: An integrated perspective on mitigation, damage and adaptation

Equity considerations play an important role in international climate negotiations. While policy analysis has often focused on equity as it relates to mitigation costs, there are large regional differences in adaptation costs and the level of residual damage. This paper illustrates the relevance of including adaptation and residual damage in equity considerations by determining how the allocation of emission allowances would change to counteract regional differences in total climate costs, defined as the costs of mitigation, adaptation, and residual damage. We compare emission levels resulting from a global carbon tax with two allocations of emission allowances under a global cap-and-trade system: one equating mitigation costs and one equating total climate costs as share of GDP. To account for uncertainties in both mitigation and adaptation, we use a model-comparison approach employing two alternative modeling frameworks with different damage, adaptation cost, and mitigation cost estimates, and look at two different climate goals. Despite the identified model uncertainties, we derive unambiguous results on the change in emission allowance allocation that could lessen the unequal distribution of adaptation costs and residual damages through the financial transfers associated with emission trading

MEMS based fabrication of high-frequency integrated inductors on Ni–Cu–Zn ferrite substrates

A surface micro-machining process is described to realize planar inductors on ferrite (Ni0.49Zn0.33Cu0.18 Fe2O4) for high-frequency applications (14 at 30 MHz) and ~244 nH (DC resistance~0.86 Ω and Q-value~18 at 30 MHz) at 1 MHz for elongated racetrack (10.75 nH/mm2) and racetrack inductors (12.5 nH/mm2), respectively show good agreement with simulated finite element method analysis. This device can be integrated with power management ICs PMICs for cost-effective, high-performance realization of power-supply in package (PSiP) or on-chip (PSoC). This simple process lays the foundation for fabricating closed core ferrite nano-crystalline core micro-inductors