Deep retrofit approaches: managing risks to minimise the energy performance gap

Energy use in buildings remains a significant part of overall energy demand. Deep renovation projects, delivered at scale, remain a challenging task to achieve a lower carbon building stock.The complexity of building renovation beyond standards and building specifications is related to inherent characteristics of buildings which require distinct project management techniques. While there are now more projects focusing on achieving operational performance, there is still very little research on the management of the renovation and retrofit process itself. Recognising that each project working on an existing building is unique in type, timing, energy goals and the roles/characteristics of people involved, the aim of this paper is to add to the current debate of how intervention approaches (one-off or over-time, whole-house, fabric-first room-by-room, measure-by-measure) are promoted by different policies, and with what impact. The paper discusses the complexity of a deep renovation project in terms of planning and management and the ways current policies can lead to unintended consequences in the short and long term, as well in lock-in effects that contribute to energy performance, and to the gap between designed and actual energy performance. Using a typology of risks, the issues associated with renovation processes and technologies were explored in a sample of cases studies from deep retrofits across the EU. The evidence from these shows that despite holistic planning for renovation, interventions tend to be carried out in phases. These contrasting time dimensions and the different retrofit approaches are discussed with risk profiles for each retrofit project, suggesting how risks emerge throughout a project. A series of risk mitigation strategies are suggested which, taken in combination to suit a specific project’s risk profile, may serve to reduce and potentially eliminate the building renovation energy performance gap

Irreversible quantum graphs

Irreversibility is introduced to quantum graphs by coupling the graphs to a bath of harmonic oscillators. The interaction which is linear in the harmonic oscillator amplitudes is localized at the vertices. It is shown that for sufficiently strong coupling, the spectrum of the system admits a new continuum mode which exists even if the graph is compact, and a {\it single} harmonic oscillator is coupled to it. This mechanism is shown to imply that the quantum dynamics is irreversible. Moreover, it demonstrates the surprising result that irreversibility can be introduced by a "bath" which consists of a {\it single} harmonic oscillator

The dynamics of the 3D radial NLS with the combined terms

In this paper, we show the scattering and blow-up result of the radial solution with the energy below the threshold for the nonlinear Schr\"{o}dinger equation (NLS) with the combined terms iu_t + \Delta u = -|u|^4u + |u|^2u \tag{CNLS} in the energy space $H^1(\R^3)$. The threshold is given by the ground state $W$ for the energy-critical NLS: $iu_t + \Delta u = -|u|^4u$. This problem was proposed by Tao, Visan and Zhang in \cite{TaoVZ:NLS:combined}. The main difficulty is the lack of the scaling invariance. Illuminated by \cite{IbrMN:f:NLKG}, we need give the new radial profile decomposition with the scaling parameter, then apply it into the scattering theory. Our result shows that the defocusing, $\dot H^1$-subcritical perturbation $|u|^2u$ does not affect the determination of the threshold of the scattering solution of (CNLS) in the energy space.Comment: 46page

Zeta function regularization in Casimir effect calculations and J.S. Dowker's contribution

A summary of relevant contributions, ordered in time, to the subject of operator zeta functions and their application to physical issues is provided. The description ends with the seminal contributions of Stephen Hawking and Stuart Dowker and collaborators, considered by many authors as the actual starting point of the introduction of zeta function regularization methods in theoretical physics, in particular, for quantum vacuum fluctuation and Casimir effect calculations. After recalling a number of the strengths of this powerful and elegant method, some of its limitations are discussed. Finally, recent results of the so called operator regularization procedure are presented.Comment: 16 pages, dedicated to J.S. Dowker, version to appear in International Journal of Modern Physics

Asymptotic behavior of small solutions for the discrete nonlinear Schr\"odinger and Klein-Gordon equations

We show decay estimates for the propagator of the discrete Schr\"odinger and Klein-Gordon equations in the form \norm{U(t)f}{l^\infty}\leq C (1+|t|)^{-d/3}\norm{f}{l^1}. This implies a corresponding (restricted) set of Strichartz estimates. Applications of the latter include the existence of excitation thresholds for certain regimes of the parameters and the decay of small initial data for relevant $l^p$ norms. The analytical decay estimates are corroborated with numerical results.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figure

CMV matrices in random matrix theory and integrable systems: a survey

We present a survey of recent results concerning a remarkable class of unitary matrices, the CMV matrices. We are particularly interested in the role they play in the theory of random matrices and integrable systems. Throughout the paper we also emphasize the analogies and connections to Jacobi matrices.Comment: Based on a talk given at the Short Program on Random Matrices, Random Processes and Integrable Systems, CRM, Universite de Montreal, 200

Adaptive single-shot phase measurements: The full quantum theory

The phase of a single-mode field can be measured in a single-shot measurement by interfering the field with an effectively classical local oscillator of known phase. The standard technique is to have the local oscillator detuned from the system (heterodyne detection) so that it is sometimes in phase and sometimes in quadrature with the system over the course of the measurement. This enables both quadratures of the system to be measured, from which the phase can be estimated. One of us [H.M. Wiseman, Phys. Rev. Lett. 75, 4587 (1995)] has shown recently that it is possible to make a much better estimate of the phase by using an adaptive technique in which a resonant local oscillator has its phase adjusted by a feedback loop during the single-shot measurement. In Ref.~[H.M. Wiseman and R.B. Killip, Phys. Rev. A 56, 944] we presented a semiclassical analysis of a particular adaptive scheme, which yielded asymptotic results for the phase variance of strong fields. In this paper we present an exact quantum mechanical treatment. This is necessary for calculating the phase variance for fields with small photon numbers, and also for considering figures of merit other than the phase variance. Our results show that an adaptive scheme is always superior to heterodyne detection as far as the variance is concerned. However the tails of the probability distribution are surprisingly high for this adaptive measurement, so that it does not always result in a smaller probability of error in phase-based optical communication.Comment: 17 pages, LaTeX, 8 figures (concatenated), Submitted to Phys. Rev.

Linear Statistics of Point Processes via Orthogonal Polynomials

For arbitrary $\beta > 0$, we use the orthogonal polynomials techniques developed by R. Killip and I. Nenciu to study certain linear statistics associated with the circular and Jacobi $\beta$ ensembles. We identify the distribution of these statistics then prove a joint central limit theorem. In the circular case, similar statements have been proved using different methods by a number of authors. In the Jacobi case these results are new.Comment: Added references, corrected typos. To appear, J. Stat. Phy

Local and Global Well-Posedness for Aggregation Equations and Patlak-Keller-Segel Models with Degenerate Diffusion

Recently, there has been a wide interest in the study of aggregation equations and Patlak-Keller-Segel (PKS) models for chemotaxis with degenerate diffusion. The focus of this paper is the unification and generalization of the well-posedness theory of these models. We prove local well-posedness on bounded domains for dimensions $d\geq 2$ and in all of space for $d\geq 3$, the uniqueness being a result previously not known for PKS with degenerate diffusion. We generalize the notion of criticality for PKS and show that subcritical problems are globally well-posed. For a fairly general class of problems, we prove the existence of a critical mass which sharply divides the possibility of finite time blow up and global existence. Moreover, we compute the critical mass for fully general problems and show that solutions with smaller mass exists globally. For a class of supercritical problems we prove finite time blow up is possible for initial data of arbitrary mass.Comment: 31 page