Steering capital : the growing private authority of index providers in the age of passive asset management

Since the global financial crisis, there is a massive shift of assets towards index funds. Rather than picking stocks, index funds replicate stock indices such as the S&P 500. But where do these indices actually come from? This paper analyzes the politico-economic role of index providers, a small group of highly profitable firms including MSCI, S&P DJI, and FTSE Russell, and develops a research agenda from an IPE perspective. We argue that these index providers have become actors that exercise growing private authority as they steer investments through the indices they create and maintain. While technical expertise is a precondition, their brand is the primary source of index provider authority, which is entrenched through network externalities. Rather than a purely technical exercise, constructing indices is inherently political. Which companies or countries are included into an index or excluded (i.e. receive investment in- or outflows) is based on criteria defined by index providers, thereby setting standards for corporate governance and investor access. Hence, in this new age of passive asset management index providers are becoming gatekeepers that exert de facto regulatory power and thus may have important effects on corporate governance and the economic policies of countries

Impacts of Electricity Consumers’ Unit Commitment on Low Voltage Networks

Todays electricity consumer tend to become small businesses as they invest in their own decentralized electricity generation and stationary electricity storage as well as in information technology (IT) to connect and organize these new devices. Furthermore, the installed IT allows them at least technically to establish local markets. The variety of consumers and their characteristics implies numerous ways of how they optimize their individual unit commitment. This paper aims to analyze the impact of the individual consumers decisions on a future electricity demand and feed-in on low voltage network level. Therefore, in a first step the different unit commitment problems of the different small businesses have been modeled using linear programming (LP). In a second step these consumers are modeled as learning agents of a multi-agent system (MAS). The MAS comprises a local electricity market in which participants negotiate supply relationships. Finally, using scenarios with different input parameters the resulting impact is studied in detail. Amongst others, the simulations’ results show major changes in electricity demand and feed-in for scenarios with high market penetration of storages

Cross-border Mobility for Electric Vehicles: Selected results from one of the first cross-border field tests in Europe

This book provides selected results from the accompanying research of the project CROME. The vision of the project was to create and test a safe, seamless, user-friendly and reliable mobility with electric vehicles between France and Germany as a prefiguration of a pan-European electric mobility system. Major aims were contributions to the European standardisation process of charging infrastructure for electric mobility and corresponding services, and to provide an early customer feedback

Response of Patient-Derived Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Xenografts to Classical and Targeted Therapies Is Not Related to Multidrug Resistance Markers

Tumor cells that are nonsensitive to anticancer drugs frequently have a multidrug resistant (MDR) phenotype. Many studies with cell lines and patient material have been done to investigate the impact of different resistance markers at protein and mRNA level in drug resistance but with contradictory outcome. In the present study, 26 well-characterised patient-derived non-small cell lung cancer xenografts were used. The known chemosensitivity to etoposide, carboplatin, gemcitabine, paclitaxel and erlotinib was compared to the protein and mRNA expression of BCRP, LRP, MDR1, and MRP1. Further, four of these xenografts were short-term treated to analyse possible regulation mechanisms after therapeutic interventions. We found a borderline correlation between the bcrp mRNA expression and the response of xenografts to etoposide. All other constitutive mRNA and protein expression levels were not correlated to any drug response and were not significantly influenced by a short term treatment. The present results indicate that the expression levels of MDR proteins and mRNA investigated do not play an important role in the chemoresistance of NSCLC in the in vivo situation

Generating electric vehicle load profiles from empirical data of three EV fleets in Southwest Germany

The increasing demand for electricity caused by a growing number of electric vehicles (EV) is a major challenge for future energy systems. For an integration of the electricity demand from EV, a comprehensive knowledge of its characteristics is essential. The analysis of charging behavior patterns of EV and resulting load profiles become important premises for this crucial task. Three electric mobility studies in Germany\u27s southwestern region (Get eReady, iZEUS, and CROME) deliver comprehensive data of EV use for this purpose. In this paper we analyze and discuss the mobility and charging characteristics of this data in detail. We derive empirical EV load profiles and show how they are affected by charging management as well as charging power. We present a model to simulate EV loads based on statistical characteristics of the conducted studies. The resulting charging load profiles show similar patterns as other EV studies. The developed simulation model and its results (see supplementary data available online) allow a realistic representation of EV demand in analyses of future energy systems

Advanced Bifunctional Oxygen Reduction and Evolution Electrocatalyst Derived from Surface-Mounted Metal-Organic Frameworks

Metal‐organic frameworks (MOFs) and their derivatives are considered as promising catalysts for the oxygen reduction (ORR) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER), which are important for many energy provision technologies, such as electrolyzers, fuel cells and some types of advanced batteries. In this work, a “strain modulation” approach has been applied through the use of surface‐mounted NiFe‐MOFs in order to design an advanced bifunctional ORR/OER electrocatalyst. The material exhibits an excellent OER activity in alkaline media, reaching an industrially relevant current density of 200 mA·cm ‐2 at an overpotential of just ~210 mV. It demonstrates operational long‐term stability even at a high current density of 500 mA·cm ‐2 and exhibits the so far narrowest “overpotential window” ΔE ORR‐OER : 0.69 V in 0.1 M KOH with a mass loading being two orders of magnitude lower than that of benchmark electrocatalysts

Methods for forecasting the market penetration of electric drivetrains in the passenger car market

Current car technologies will not solve upcoming challenges of mitigating greenhouse gas emissions in road transport. Projections of the market penetration by alternative drive train technologies are controversial regarding both forecast market shares and applied scientific methods. Accepting this latter challenge, we provide a (so far missing) overview of methods applied in this field and give some recommendations for further work. Our focus is to classify the applied methods into a convenient pattern and to analyse models from the recent scientific literature which consider the electrification of light-duty vehicles. We differentiate the following bottom-up approaches: Econometric models with disaggregated data (such as discrete choice), and agent-based simulation models. The group of top-down models are subdivided into econometric models with aggregated data (e.g. vehicle stock data), system dynamics, as well as integrated assessment models with general equilibrium models. It becomes obvious that some methods have a stronger methodological background whereas others require comprehensive data sets or can be combined more flexibly with other methods. Even though there is no dominant method, we can identify a trend in the literature towards data-driven hybrid approaches, which considers micro and macro aspects influencing the market penetration of electric vehicles

Modeling of Magnesium Intercalation into Chevrel Phase Mo 6 S 8 : Report on Improved Cell Design

A good understanding of the limiting processes in rechargeable magnesium batteries is key to develop novel high-capacity/high-voltage cathode materials. Thereby, the performance of magnesium-ion batteries can strongly depend on the morphology of the intercalation cathode. Moreover, high mass loadings are essential for commercialization. In this work the influence of different mass loadings are studied in addition to the impact of the particle size distribution of the active material. Therefore, a detailed continuum model is developed, which is able to describe the complex intercalation of magnesium into a Chevrel phase (CP) cathode. The model considers the thermodynamics, kinetics and interplay of the two energetically different intercalation sites of Mo6S8, which results from its unique crystal structure, as well as the impact of the desolvation on the electrochemical reactions and possible ion agglomeration. Ideal combinations of mass loading and electrolyte concentration as well as the desired CP particle size are determined for the state-of-the-art magnesium tetrakis(hexafluoroisopropyloxy)borate Mg[B(hfip)4]2 electrolyte