2,037 research outputs found
A comparison of AC and HVDC options for the connection of offshore wind generation in Great Britain
This paper presents a comparison of two forms of cable connection of a distant offshore wind farm to a transmission system: AC and HVDC. The requirements of relevant industry standards in Great Britain (GB) that drive a connection design and, hence, its cost are highlighted along with an analysis of the ways in which AC cable connections might be made to comply while facilitating export of active power. Dynamic studies investigating responses to grid-side short circuit faults show that, in the particular scenarios studied, an AC connection of a wind farm in the place of a large synchronous generator is marginally detrimental while an HVDC connection is beneficial. A comparison of costs shows that the cross-over distance at which HVDC is cheaper than AC for wind farms of different sizes occurs at longer distances than have hitherto commonly been assumed, and AC connections benefit from reactive compensation not only at the point of common coupling and wind farm end but also at the connection mid-point
Public health program capacity for sustainability: A new framework
Abstract Background Public health programs can only deliver benefits if they are able to sustain activities over time. There is a broad literature on program sustainability in public health, but it is fragmented and there is a lack of consensus on core constructs. The purpose of this paper is to present a new conceptual framework for program sustainability in public health. Methods This developmental study uses a comprehensive literature review, input from an expert panel, and the results of concept-mapping to identify the core domains of a conceptual framework for public health program capacity for sustainability. The concept-mapping process included three types of participants (scientists, funders, and practitioners) from several public health areas (e.g., tobacco control, heart disease and stroke, physical activity and nutrition, and injury prevention). Results The literature review identified 85 relevant studies focusing on program sustainability in public health. Most of the papers described empirical studies of prevention-oriented programs aimed at the community level. The concept-mapping process identified nine core domains that affect a programâs capacity for sustainability: Political Support, Funding Stability, Partnerships, Organizational Capacity, Program Evaluation, Program Adaptation, Communications, Public Health Impacts, and Strategic Planning. Concept-mapping participants further identified 93 items across these domains that have strong face validityâ89% of the individual items composing the framework had specific support in the sustainability literature. Conclusions The sustainability framework presented here suggests that a number of selected factors may be related to a programâs ability to sustain its activities and benefits over time. These factors have been discussed in the literature, but this framework synthesizes and combines the factors and suggests how they may be interrelated with one another. The framework presents domains for public health decision makers to consider when developing and implementing prevention and intervention programs. The sustainability framework will be useful for public health decision makers, program managers, program evaluators, and dissemination and implementation researchers
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SEADS 3.0 Sectoral Energy/Employment Analysis and Data System
SEADS 3.0, the Sectoral Energy/Employment Analysis and Data System, is a revision and upgrading of SEADSâPC, a software package designed for the analysis of policy that could be described by modifying final demands of consumer, businesses, or governments (Roop, et al., 1995). If a question can be formulated so that implications can be translated into changes in final demands for goods and services, then SEADS 3.0 provides a quick and easy tool to assess preliminary impacts. And SEADS 3.0 should be considered just that: a quick and easy way to get preliminary results. Often a thorough answer, even to such a simple question as, âWhat would be the effect on U. S. energy use and employment if the Federal Government doubled R&D expenditures?â requires a more sophisticated analytical framework than the input-output structure embedded in SEADS 3.0. This tool uses a static, input-output model to assess the impacts of changes in final demands on first industry output, then employment and energy use. The employment and energy impacts are derived by multiplying the industry outputs (derived from the changed final demands) by industry-specific energy and employment coefficients. The tool also allows for the specification of regional or state employment impacts, though this option is not available for energy impacts
Validation of Twelve Small Kepler Transiting Planets in the Habitable Zone
We present an investigation of twelve candidate transiting planets from
Kepler with orbital periods ranging from 34 to 207 days, selected from initial
indications that they are small and potentially in the habitable zone (HZ) of
their parent stars. Few of these objects are known. The expected Doppler
signals are too small to confirm them by demonstrating that their masses are in
the planetary regime. Here we verify their planetary nature by validating them
statistically using the BLENDER technique, which simulates large numbers of
false positives and compares the resulting light curves with the Kepler
photometry. This analysis was supplemented with new follow-up observations
(high-resolution optical and near-infrared spectroscopy, adaptive optics
imaging, and speckle interferometry), as well as an analysis of the flux
centroids. For eleven of them (KOI-0571.05, 1422.04, 1422.05, 2529.02, 3255.01,
3284.01, 4005.01, 4087.01, 4622.01, 4742.01, and 4745.01) we show that the
likelihood they are true planets is far greater than that of a false positive,
to a confidence level of 99.73% (3 sigma) or higher. For KOI-4427.01 the
confidence level is about 99.2% (2.6 sigma). With our accurate characterization
of the GKM host stars, the derived planetary radii range from 1.1 to 2.7
R_Earth. All twelve objects are confirmed to be in the HZ, and nine are small
enough to be rocky. Excluding three of them that have been previously validated
by others, our study doubles the number of known rocky planets in the HZ.
KOI-3284.01 (Kepler-438b) and KOI-4742.01 (Kepler-442b) are the planets most
similar to the Earth discovered to date when considering their size and
incident flux jointly.Comment: 27 pages in emulateapj format, including tables and figures. To
appear in The Astrophysical Journa
Fluxes, Brane Charges and Chern Morphisms of Hyperbolic Geometry
The purpose of this paper is to provide the reader with a collection of
results which can be found in the mathematical literature and to apply them to
hyperbolic spaces that may have a role in physical theories. Specifically we
apply K-theory methods for the calculation of brane charges and RR-fields on
hyperbolic spaces (and orbifolds thereof). It is known that by tensoring
K-groups with the rationals, K-theory can be mapped to rational cohomology by
means of the Chern character isomorphisms. The Chern character allows one to
relate the analytic Dirac index with a topological index, which can be
expressed in terms of cohomological characteristic classes. We obtain explicit
formulas for Chern character, spectral invariants, and the index of a twisted
Dirac operator associated with real hyperbolic spaces. Some notes for a
bivariant version of topological K-theory (KK-theory) with its connection to
the index of the twisted Dirac operator and twisted cohomology of hyperbolic
spaces are given. Finally we concentrate on lower K-groups useful for
description of torsion charges.Comment: 26 pages, no figures, LATEX. To appear in the Classical and Quantum
Gravit
The high-pressure phase of boron, {\gamma}-B28: disputes and conclusions of 5 years after discovery
{\gamma}-B28 is a recently established high-pressure phase of boron. Its
structure consists of icosahedral B12 clusters and B2 dumbbells in a NaCl-type
arrangement (B2){\delta}+(B12){\delta}- and displays a significant charge
transfer {\delta}~0.5- 0.6. The discovery of this phase proved essential for
the understanding and construction of the phase diagram of boron. {\gamma}-B28
was first experimentally obtained as a pure boron allotrope in early 2004 and
its structure was discovered in 2006. This paper reviews recent results and in
particular deals with the contentious issues related to the equation of state,
hardness, putative isostructural phase transformation at ~40 GPa, and debates
on the nature of chemical bonding in this phase. Our analysis confirms that (a)
calculations based on density functional theory give an accurate description of
its equation of state, (b) the reported isostructural phase transformation in
{\gamma}-B28 is an artifact rather than a fact, (c) the best estimate of
hardness of this phase is 50 GPa, (d) chemical bonding in this phase has a
significant degree of ionicity. Apart from presenting an overview of previous
results within a consistent view grounded in experiment, thermodynamics and
quantum mechanics, we present new results on Bader charges in {\gamma}-B28
using different levels of quantum-mechanical theory (GGA, exact exchange, and
HSE06 hybrid functional), and show that the earlier conclusion about
significant degree of partial ionicity in this phase is very robust
Characteristics of Kepler Planetary Candidates Based on the First Data Set: The Majority are Found to be Neptune-Size and Smaller
In the spring of 2009, the Kepler Mission commenced high-precision photometry
on nearly 156,000 stars to determine the frequency and characteristics of small
exoplanets, conduct a guest observer program, and obtain asteroseismic data on
a wide variety of stars. On 15 June 2010 the Kepler Mission released data from
the first quarter of observations. At the time of this publication, 706 stars
from this first data set have exoplanet candidates with sizes from as small as
that of the Earth to larger than that of Jupiter. Here we give the identity and
characteristics of 306 released stars with planetary candidates. Data for the
remaining 400 stars with planetary candidates will be released in February
2011. Over half the candidates on the released list have radii less than half
that of Jupiter. The released stars include five possible multi-planet systems.
One of these has two Neptune-size (2.3 and 2.5 Earth-radius) candidates with
near-resonant periods.Comment: Paper to accompany Kepler's June 15, 2010 data release; submitted to
Astrophysical Journal Figures 1,2,& 3 revised. Improved labeling on all
figures. Slight changes to planet frequencies in result
Transit Timing Observations from Kepler: III. Confirmation of 4 Multiple Planet Systems by a Fourier-Domain Study of Anti-correlated Transit Timing Variations
We present a method to confirm the planetary nature of objects in systems
with multiple transiting exoplanet candidates. This method involves a
Fourier-Domain analysis of the deviations in the transit times from a constant
period that result from dynamical interactions within the system. The
combination of observed anti-correlations in the transit times and mass
constraints from dynamical stability allow us to claim the discovery of four
planetary systems Kepler-25, Kepler-26, Kepler-27, and Kepler-28, containing
eight planets and one additional planet candidate.Comment: Accepted to MNRA
Rare Copy Number Variants in \u3cem\u3eNRXN1\u3c/em\u3e and \u3cem\u3eCNTN6\u3c/em\u3e Increase Risk for Tourette Syndrome
Tourette syndrome (TS) is a model neuropsychiatric disorder thought to arise from abnormal development and/or maintenance of cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical circuits. TS is highly heritable, but its underlying genetic causes are still elusive, and no genome-wide significant loci have been discovered to date. We analyzed a European ancestry sample of 2,434 TS cases and 4,093 ancestry-matched controls for rare (\u3c 1% frequency) copy-number variants (CNVs) using SNP microarray data. We observed an enrichment of global CNV burden that was prominent for large (\u3e 1 Mb), singleton events (OR = 2.28, 95% CI [1.39â3.79], p = 1.2 Ă 10â3) and known, pathogenic CNVs (OR = 3.03 [1.85â5.07], p = 1.5 Ă 10â5). We also identified two individual, genome-wide significant loci, each conferring a substantial increase in TS risk (NRXN1 deletions, OR = 20.3, 95% CI [2.6â156.2]; CNTN6 duplications, OR = 10.1, 95% CI [2.3â45.4]). Approximately 1% of TS cases carry one of these CNVs, indicating that rare structural variation contributes significantly to the genetic architecture of TS
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