Climate Risk Management and Institutional Learning

Insurance companies are a prominent mechanism for risk transfers. Many initiatives are looking toward private–public partnerships and new risk-management instruments to provide a cushion for climate change-related effects. For this aspiration to be fulfilled, insurers and institutions within which they operate need to learn about emergent risks and develop workable strategies. We explore three factors shaping the evolution of insurance practices - quantitative models of catastrophic loss, experience of catastrophic loss, and outcomes of litigated cases. We use the available evidence to assess the importance of each of these factors in how the industry is evolving and, hence, what actual risk reductions and transfers are more likely in the future.climate change, insurance, risk management, climate change litigation, insurance modeling and learning

Ground Source Heat Pump Systems in Canada: Economics and GHG Reduction Potential

Climate stabilization requires greenhouse gas reductions (GHG) in excess of 60 percent. Ground source heat pumps (GSHPs) hold the promise of meeting heating and cooling loads much more efficiently than conventional technologies. The economic viability of their widespread adoption depends on the costs of energy. Their impact on GHG reduction depends on fuel choices both in electricity generation and on customers’ premises. In this paper, we provide a systematic assessment of the GHG reduction potential across Canada of GSHPs and the economic cost of achieving this reduction. Using province-level data on household fuel choices and energy use, we find that GSHP systems offer significant GHG reductions, as well as savings in operation and maintenance costs. However, high capital costs continue to limit market diffusion. We conclude with a review of the geological suitability of the five largest urban centers in Canada for GSHP installation. This analysis shows GSHPs to hold significant potential for substantial GHG reductions in Canada at a cost savings relative to conventional alternatives, with time horizons as short as seven years.conservation, GHG mitigation, residential energy

Model, Model on the Screen, What's the Cost of Going Green?

How much a policy is expected to cost and who bears the brunt of that cost play a significant role in the debates that shape regulations. We do not have a good track record of predicting costs and their ultimate distribution, but systematic reviews of past assessments have identified some of the factors that lead to errors. A wide range of expected costs of climate policy have been hotly debated, but all are likely to be wrong. This does not mean that we should continue a debate using ill-informed analyses. On the contrary, we need early small experiments to shed light on key unknowns. Environmental stewardship is a long-term challenge and an adaptive regulatory approach promises to inform policy targets and improve controls through sequential regulatory phases that promote: innovation, flexibility and diffusion of best technologies.cost estimation, climate policy, modeling, adaptive management

A Sociocultural Perspective on Everyday Interactions Stressing Grammatical vs. Communicative Competence: The Case of Iranian Taxi-discussions

Conversation analysis as a branch of the vast field of discourse studies, aims to show the structure and the process of social interaction between people in any genre of conversation. This aim is traced in this study as well. This study focuses on Dell Hymes’ idea on the notion of communicative competence which is going beyond the structural linguistic properties of language. The purpose of this study is to make a link between communicative competence and sociocultural dimensions of language, which has a determining role in building up interlocutors’ shared ground and enabling a course of communication to take place. For this purpose, a case of Iranian taxi discussions is selected. The conversational codes are identified and the reason why a specific code occurred is provided according to the contexts of that taxi discussion (the context is provided by the narrator’s detailed description of the detail about that situation and condition). This was a discussion that interlocutors opposed each others’ ideas; therefore, the most frequent code was FTA which occurred 6 times

Simultaneous fusion, classification, andtraction of moving obstacles by LIDAR and camera using Bayesian algorithm

In the near future, preventing collisions with fixed or moving, alive, and inanimate obstacles will appear to be a severe challenge due to the increased use of Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs). Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) sensors and cameras are usually used in UGV to detect obstacles. The definite tracing and classification of moving obstacles is a significant dimension in developed driver assistance systems. It is believed that the perceived model of the situation can be improved by incorporating the obstacle classification. The present study indicated a multi-hypotheses monitoring and classifying approach, which allows solving ambiguities rising with the last methods of associating and classifying targets and tracks in a highly volatile vehicular situation. This method was tested through real data from various driving scenarios and focusing on two obstacles of interest vehicle, pedestrian.In the near future, preventing collisions with fixed or moving, alive, and inanimate obstacles will appear to be a severe challenge due to the increased use of Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs). Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) sensors and cameras are usually used in UGV to detect obstacles. The definite tracing and classification of moving obstacles is a significant dimension in developed driver assistance systems. It is believed that the perceived model of the situation can be improved by incorporating the obstacle classification. The present study indicated a multi-hypotheses monitoring and classifying approach, which allows solving ambiguities rising with the last methods of associating and classifying targets and tracks in a highly volatile vehicular situation. This method was tested through real data from various driving scenarios and focusing on two obstacles of interest vehicle, pedestrian

An Investigation into Rohani’s Meeting Coverage in Two English Daily Newspapers with a Critical Discourse Analysis Perspective: Tehran Times vs. Los Angeles Times

This study was an attempt to investigate the ideological differences between the discourse of Los Angeles Times and Tehran Times in representing Iran's Rouhani meeting at the U.N. To this end, 4 reports in relation to the Iran's Rouhani meeting at the U.N. were collected from the websites of two newspapers of Los Angeles Times and Tehran Times. The reports were grouped and analyzed. The articles were analyzed in terms of the utilized discursive strategies. Hence, the similarities and differences between the two newspapers in representing Iran's Rouhani meeting at the U.N. were discussed.  It was shown that the Los Angeles Times heavily relied on Authoritative, Explanation, Evidentiality and Counterfactual discursive strategies and Tehran Times on Actor Description, Hyperbole, Lexicalization, Repetition and Situation Description discursive strategies

Does psychosocial stress experienced at different points across the rat lifespan cause sex-specific changes in spatial learning and memory and plasticity-related proteins?

Overview Considering that susceptibility to a range of diseases appears strongly influenced by both sex and exposure to social stress, there is a need to evaluate how adverse experiences across the lifespan (alone and in combination) may affect brain development and function, and whether these interactions are modified by sex. Therefore, we examined two models of social stress, Chronic Early-Life Social Isolation (CELSI; an early-life psychosocial stressor) and Bystander Stress (ByS; an adult psychosocial stressor), individually and together, to determine how they affected the hippocampus (a structure important for learning and memory) in both male and female rats. Objectives Various models have been proposed to help explain how early-life and adulthood stressors interact to affect disease vulnerability. In particular, the match/mismatch hypothesis suggests that early-life experiences can most clearly affect disease risk when they are incongruent with experiences during adulthood. However, since we had insufficient background information about the individual effects of the selected psychosocial stress models (especially the ByS model), we began by exploring some of the critical behavioural and biochemical traits of CELSI and ByS models in both male and female rats. After this, we examined the potential impact of post-weaning chronic social isolation on hippocampus-dependent behavioural and biochemical responses to bystander stress in adulthood. Potential changes in spatial learning and memory performance were evaluated along with changes in the expression of several glutamate receptor subunits (including GluA1, GluA2, GluN1, GluN2A, and GluN2B) and PSD-95 in the septal and temporal poles of the hippocampus. The highlighted proteins were selected given that they are upstream elements of hippocampal synaptic plasticity and play an important role in learning and memory. Importantly, all assessments of the behavioural and biochemical data were done using sex as a variable. Methods For the first study, upon weaning, male and female siblings from 15 Sprague-Dawley rat litters were stratified by sex and then randomly assigned to either group housing (3 animals/cage), or social isolation (1 animal/cage) for 7 weeks (that is, CELSI). Spatial learning and memory were then tested over 5 days using the Morris water maze (MWM). Next, the animals were euthanized, and a variety of stress-sensitive biometrics (body weight, adrenal gland weight, liver weight, retroperitoneal fat pad weight, serum corticosterone levels, liver lipid content, and non-fasting blood glucose) were collected. Lastly, to determine whether CELSI affected neural cell density, the expression of key neuronal and glial proteins (PSD-95 and GFAP, respectively) was assessed in isolated hippocampal tissue using Western blotting. In the second study, bystander stress was applied to adult male and female rats twice per day for 5 consecutive days. To remove the potential influence of behavioural testing on the expression of plasticity-related proteins in the hippocampus, the study was completed in two parts: 10 groups were examined using the MWM and 6 groups were used for tissue harvesting after the stress paradigm. Following the hippocampal dissection, septal and temporal poles were isolated. Then, after preparing enrichments of synaptic terminals, Western blotting was used to measure the expression of key AMPA and NMDA receptor subunits (GluN1, GluN2A, GluN2B, GluA1, and GluA2), as well as PSD-95. In the final study, to investigate the effect of early-life stress on response to adulthood stress (by considering match/mismatch theory), after undergoing CELSI (or group housing), animals were placed in standard housing conditions for 6 months and then underwent ByS. Once the ByS paradigm was completed, MWM data were collected. After the collection of behavioural data, hippocampal tissue was harvested, synaptoneurosomes were prepared, and Western blotting used to examine the expression of AMPA and NMDA receptor subunits, as well as PSD-95, in the septal and temporal poles. Results Unexpectedly, in study one, socially isolated male and female rats displayed stronger spatial learning and memory ability than group housed rats. As well, socially isolated male rats exhibited increased expression of PSD-95 (a key neuronal cell marker). However, there was no clear effect of housing condition on stress-sensitive biometrics, or the hippocampal expression of GFAP. In study two, no significant differences were observed between the spatial learning and memory performance of control and bystander stress male and female rats. However, the expression of GluA2, GluN2A, and GluN2B was dramatically decreased in the septal pole of the hippocampus in male rats exposed to bystander stress, when compared to male bystander control rats. In contrast, levels of GluA2 were clearly increased in the temporal pole of the hippocampus from female ByS rats compared to female ByC rats. Lastly, expression of PSD-95 was found to be greater in the temporal pole of male ByS rats relative to female ByS rats. The results of study three indicate that male rats performed better on the spatial learning task than female rats within the matched control situation (group housing during the post-weaning period followed by the ByC group during adulthood). Surprisingly, the learning performance of male animals that experienced the mismatch 1 condition was also superior to that of female animals (that is, the animals underwent social isolation followed by ByC). In alignment with our hypothesis, male animals exposed to a stressful situation both during development and in adulthood (that is, with matched stress exposures: SI-ByS) displayed better spatial learning on day four than animals that were raised in group housing, but experienced bystander stress in adulthood (a mismatched situation: GH-ByS). In terms of protein expression, a significant increase in GluN1 expression was observed in the hippocampal septal pole of male rats exposed to matched stressful situations (SI-ByS) as compared to matched control male rats (GH-ByC). Conclusion Our findings reveal that there are sex-based, long-standing effects of early-life adversity on later stress exposure with regards to hippocampal-dependent behaviour. In particular, our results indicate that spatial learning performance was best on the match condition on adversity (SI-ByS), but only in male rats. The finding supports the match/mismatch theory in that the outcome from dealing with an adult psychosocial stressor similar to the environment encountered during early life (match) differs from that observed when dealing with incongruent psychosocial situations encountered across the lifespan (mismatch) and, notably, that male and female rats are uniquely affected