Assessment of Alternative Energy/Environment Futures for Austria, 1977-2015: An Executive Summary

This report was prepared to complement a presentation made October 25, 1977 at IIASA. The presentation, titled "An Executive Briefing Session", was designed to present the final results of a thirteen-month study of the Austrian Energy/Environment System to leaders in Austrian government, industry, and science. This written documentation of the results (of which a German translation is also available) presents in a brief form the final conclusions of this study. The study results provide a comprehensive spatial and sectoral description of Austrian energy consumption, and examine alternative energy and environmental policy strategies. This report, however, is only a summary and a more complete description will appear in Research Report form in 1978

Assessment of Alternative Energy/Environment Futures for Austria: 1977-2015

The Austrian Regional Energy/Environment Study is the fourth in a series of IIASA studies on regional energy and environmental systems. The regions studied previously were the German Democratic Republic, the Rhone-Alpes Region in France and the state of Wisconsin in the U.S.A. The Austrian case study, regional in scope, complements the work of the IIASA Energy Systems Program which focuses primarily on global aspects of energy. This report presents the major results of the l5-month, Austrian case study, which examines alternative energy futures and strategies for Austria and some of their environmental implications. A secondary objective is the development of appropriate concepts and methods for energy/environment management and policy design in Austria

Assessment of Alternative Energy/Environment Futures for Austria 1977-2015: Final Summary Report

This study had two primary objectives: (1) To examine alternative energy futures and strategies for Austria and to consider some of their environmental implications. (2) To investigate and apply appropriate concepts and . methodologies for energy/environment management and policy design in Austria. The establishment of these objectives was based upon the conviction that in Austria, as in most regions and nations of the world, there is an urgent need for the development and application of methods for studying regional energy systems and for testing the impact of alternative policies. In view of the major role which energy plays in the determination of environmental quality, this study was designed to aid in the integration of energy and environmental management from a systems perspective. "Regional," in the context of our previous studies, is not strictly defined as subnational or as a specific class of geographic units; rather, it refers to a region, appropriately bounded so that it is possible to speak of energy and environmental systems from a physical, socioeconomic, or administrative perspective, or from all three. At the beginning of this study, we intended to limit its scope to a selected few Austrian Lander (states); we quickly realized that Austria's size and vigorous interregional links precluded anything less than a national study

The Wisconsin-IIASA Set of Energy/Environment (WISE) Models for Regional Planning and Management: An Overview

This report presents an overview of the analytical framework and quantitative methods used in the IIASA case studies on Regional Energy/Environment Management and Planning. Its purpose is to summarize the structure of the models, to provide a complete listing of the sources of more detailed model and data descriptions, and to indicate how the models are integrated to provide a foundation for regional energy/environment policy maker analysis. The audience for the report includes managers, planners, technical advisors, and modelers. The set of models used in the research project encompasses socioeconomic links to the energy system; energy demand in the residential, industrial, commercial/service, agricultural and transportation sectors; the energy supply sector, environmental impacts associated with the energy system; and policy makers' preferences. The report gives a brief description of the purpose and general structure of each model, data requirements, examples of input and output, and model limitations. As a whole, the models integrate information about energy flows in a region to simulate the energy system and its relationship to other regional variables, e.g., demographic and economic trends and the environment

Structure, Photophysics and the Order-Disorder Transition to the Beta Phase in Poly(9,9-(di -n,n-octyl)fluorene)

X-ray diffraction, UV-vis absorption and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy have been used to study the well-known order-disorder transition (ODT) to the beta phase in poly(9,9-(di n,n-octyl)fluorene)) (PF8) thin film samples through combination of time-dependent and temperature-dependent measurements. The ODT is well described by a simple Avrami picture of one-dimensional nucleation and growth but crystallization, on cooling, proceeds only after molecular-level conformational relaxation to the so called beta phase. Rapid thermal quenching is employed for PF8 studies of pure alpha phase samples while extended low-temperature annealing is used for improved beta phase formation. Low temperature PL studies reveal sharp Franck-Condon type emission bands and, in the beta phase, two distinguishable vibronic sub-bands with energies of approximately 199 and 158 meV at 25 K. This improved molecular level structural order leads to a more complete analysis of the higher-order vibronic bands. A net Huang-Rhys coupling parameter of just under 0.7 is typically observed but the relative contributions by the two distinguishable vibronic sub-bands exhibit an anomalous temperature dependence. The PL studies also identify strongly correlated behavior between the relative beta phase 0-0 PL peak position and peak width. This relationship is modeled under the assumption that emission represents excitons in thermodynamic equilibrium from states at the bottom of a quasi-one-dimensional exciton band. The crystalline phase, as observed in annealed thin-film samples, has scattering peaks which are incompatible with a simple hexagonal packing of the PF8 chains.Comment: Submitted to PRB, 12 files; 1 tex, 1 bbl, 10 eps figure

Effects of d-α-Tocopherol and Dietary Energy on Growth and Health of Pre-Ruminant Dairy Calves

Newborn Holstein bull calves were fed milk to support low or moderate growth and were supplemented with a complement of vitamins A, D, and E. The objective of the study was to determine the effects of dietary energy and vitamin supplementation on inflammation at the whole-body level. Calves were assigned randomly to one of four treatment groups (low growth, not vitamin supplemented; low growth, vitamin supplemented; moderate growth, not vitamin supplemented; moderate growth, vitamin supplemented) for five weeks. Vitamin supplementation tended to improve average daily gain in moderate-growth calves and significantly increased concentrations of retinol, 25-(OH)-vitamin D, and α-tocopherol in plasma in supplemented groups. Moderate growth calves exhibited lower concentrations of α-tocopherol in plasma and higher concentrations of serum haptoglobin, which is a protein associated with chronic inflammation. All calves exhibited elevated concentrations of the more acute indicator of inflammation, serum amyloid A, during weeks 1-3. These results indicate potential roles for vitamins A, D, and E in moderation of pro-inflammatory responses early in life

Joint modeling of longitudinal outcomes and survival using latent growth modeling approach in a mesothelioma trial

Joint modeling of longitudinal and survival data can provide more efficient and less biased estimates of treatment effects through accounting for the associations between these two data types. Sponsors of oncology clinical trials routinely and increasingly include patient-reported outcome (PRO) instruments to evaluate the effect of treatment on symptoms, functioning, and quality of life. Known publications of these trials typically do not include jointly modeled analyses and results. We formulated several joint models based on a latent growth model for longitudinal PRO data and a Cox proportional hazards model for survival data. The longitudinal and survival components were linked through either a latent growth trajectory or shared random effects. We applied these models to data from a randomized phase III oncology clinical trial in mesothelioma. We compared the results derived under different model specifications and showed that the use of joint modeling may result in improved estimates of the overall treatment effect

Tomato: a crop species amenable to improvement by cellular and molecular methods

Tomato is a crop plant with a relatively small DNA content per haploid genome and a well developed genetics. Plant regeneration from explants and protoplasts is feasable which led to the development of efficient transformation procedures. In view of the current data, the isolation of useful mutants at the cellular level probably will be of limited value in the genetic improvement of tomato. Protoplast fusion may lead to novel combinations of organelle and nuclear DNA (cybrids), whereas this technique also provides a means of introducing genetic information from alien species into tomato. Important developments have come from molecular approaches. Following the construction of an RFLP map, these RFLP markers can be used in tomato to tag quantitative traits bred in from related species. Both RFLP's and transposons are in the process of being used to clone desired genes for which no gene products are known. Cloned genes can be introduced and potentially improve specific properties of tomato especially those controlled by single genes. Recent results suggest that, in principle, phenotypic mutants can be created for cloned and characterized genes and will prove their value in further improving the cultivated tomato.

Planck 2015 results. XXVII. The Second Planck Catalogue of Sunyaev-Zeldovich Sources

We present the all-sky Planck catalogue of Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) sources detected from the 29 month full-mission data. The catalogue (PSZ2) is the largest SZ-selected sample of galaxy clusters yet produced and the deepest all-sky catalogue of galaxy clusters. It contains 1653 detections, of which 1203 are confirmed clusters with identified counterparts in external data-sets, and is the first SZ-selected cluster survey containing > $10^3$ confirmed clusters. We present a detailed analysis of the survey selection function in terms of its completeness and statistical reliability, placing a lower limit of 83% on the purity. Using simulations, we find that the Y5R500 estimates are robust to pressure-profile variation and beam systematics, but accurate conversion to Y500 requires. the use of prior information on the cluster extent. We describe the multi-wavelength search for counterparts in ancillary data, which makes use of radio, microwave, infra-red, optical and X-ray data-sets, and which places emphasis on the robustness of the counterpart match. We discuss the physical properties of the new sample and identify a population of low-redshift X-ray under- luminous clusters revealed by SZ selection. These objects appear in optical and SZ surveys with consistent properties for their mass, but are almost absent from ROSAT X-ray selected samples