Cost analysis of new and retrofit hot-air type solar assisted heating systems

A detailed cost analysis/cost improvement study was performed on two Department of Energy/National Aeronautics and Space Administration operational test sites to determine actual costs and potential cost improvements of new and retrofit hot air type, solar assisted heating and hot water systems for single family sized structures. This analysis concentrated on the first cost of a system which included procurement, installation, and integration of a solar assisted heating and hot water system on a new or retrofit basis; it also provided several cost projections which can be used as inputs to payback analyses, depending upon the degree of optimism or future improvements assumed. Cost definitions were developed for five categories of cost, and preliminary estimates were developed for each. The costing methodology, approach, and results together with several candidate low cost designs are described

Knowledge transfer and exchange: a look at the literature in relation to research and policy

Within the field of health policy, there have been widespread calls for the increased or improved use of evidence within policy making. This reflects an ambition to deliver better policy in terms of outcomes, resource efficiency and effectiveness, and a belief that this can be achieved through utilising the available evidence to inform and guide decision making. For those tasked with improving the uptake of a piece or body of evidence, for policy makers aiming to improve their evidence use, or for researches investigating this question, a number of conceptual questions remain on how to actually achieve this, such as: What should count as evidence for policy making? Who should govern (or steer) the use of research evidence for policy? What is ‘good evidence’ for decision making? What is the ‘good use’ of evidence from a governance perspective? How is research knowledge typically translated into policy? How can one ‘improve’ the use or uptake of evidence in policy making? The GRIP-Health Project is a 5 year, European Research Council supported programme of work that aims to improve the use of research evidence in health policy through undertaking research on the political aspects of health policy making and evidence use. The project has developed a number of working papers that engage with some of these topics.1 This current paper is concerned with the last two of the questions listed above, specifically reviewing key aspects of Knowledge Transfer and Exchange (KTE) related to getting research into policy and practice. While the health sector is increasingly motivated by a desire to get research evidence into policy, outside the field of health there is a much broader body of work that is specifically concerned with how evidence and knowledge are transferred, translated, or taken up by different policy actors. Various theories attempt to establish how KTE works, the contextual factors that influence the process, and how to achieve maximum impact for relevant bodies of evidence. Acronyms and terminology used in this field vary accordingly, and can include knowledge transfer, knowledge translation, knowledge management, and knowledge brokering. These various terms have been grouped together under the rubric ‘K*’ by some authors to reflect the multiple overlapping terms 2 Prior working papers in this series deal with aspects of: Stewardship of health evidence; hierarches and appropriateness of evidence; and institutional approaches to evidence uptake research. Working papers and other outputs of the programme are available at the GRIP-Health website http://www.lshtm.ac.uk/groups/griphealth/resources/index.html 3 (c.f. Shaxson et al., 2012). However, in this paper, we use the term KTE to refer to the general body of literature focused on issues of knowledge production, dissemination, uptake and use in policymaking. As the body of work on KTE is extensive, it was decided not to attempt a complete or systematic review of the literature. There are, however, several papers which attempt to synthesise the existing literature or systematically review elements of the KTE field. These reviews provide a starting point for mapping the field to help inform efforts to improve the use of research evidence in policy. The current paper therefore has two objectives. First, it summarises and synthesises a set of identified KTE review papers in order to undertake a comparison of their similarities and their differences on the main areas they cover, to provide a basic mapping of key KTE concepts. After this, it then explores some key themes that emerge from the KTE literature which are of particular relevance to the GRIP-Health programme and other researchers or stakeholders who are tasked with improving evidence uptake

The North Wyke Farm Platform: Fine Resolution (15-minute) Meteorological Data

The North Wyke Farm Platform (NWFP) was established in 2010 to study and improve grassland livestock production at the farm-scale. The NWFP uses a combination of environmental sensors, routine field and lab-based measurements, and detailed management records to monitor livestock and crop production, emissions to water, emissions to air, soil health, and biodiversity. The rich NWFP datasets help researchers to evaluate the effectiveness of different grassland (and arable) farming systems, which in turn, contributes to the development of sustainable, resilient and net zero land management strategies. This document serves as a user guide to the meteorological data (MET) captured at a 15-minute temporal resolution from the North Wyke Farm Platform (NWFP). The guide gives details of the instrumentation, sensor calibration and data collection and is associated with other dedicated user guides that detail the design, establishment and development of the NWFP, and the quality control process of datasets

The North Wyke Farm Platform: Field Events Data

The North Wyke Farm Platform (NWFP) was established in 2010 to study and improve grassland livestock production at the farm-scale. The NWFP uses a combination of environmental sensors, routine field and lab-based measurements, and detailed management records to monitor livestock and crop production, emissions to water, emissions to air, soil health, and biodiversity. The rich NWFP datasets help researchers to evaluate the effectiveness of different grassland (and arable) farming systems, which in turn, contributes to the development of sustainable, resilient and net zero land management strategies. This document serves as a user guide to the field events and common field operations that occur on the NWFP and is associated with other dedicated user guides that detail the collection, and quality control processing of all the datasets produced on the NWFP

Alien Registration- Levsque, Joseph (Auburn, Androscoggin County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/31126/thumbnail.jp

The North Wyke Farm Platform: Fine Resolution (15-minute) Soil Moisture Station Data

The North Wyke Farm Platform (NWFP) was established in 2010 to study and improve grassland livestock production at the farm-scale. The NWFP uses a combination of environmental sensors, routine field and lab-based measurements, and detailed management records to monitor livestock and crop production, emissions to water, emissions to air, soil health, and biodiversity. The rich NWFP datasets help researchers to evaluate the effectiveness of different grassland (and arable) farming systems, which in turn, contributes to the development of sustainable, resilient and net zero land management strategies. This document serves as a user guide to the soil moisture station (SMS) data (soil moisture and soil temperature sensors, rain gauge for precipitation) captured at a 15-minute temporal resolution. The guide gives details of the instrumentation, sensor calibration and data collection and is associated with other dedicated user guides that detail the design, establishment and development of the NWFP, field events, and the quality control process of datasets

Health system stewardship and evidence informed health policy

This Working Paper reviews the recent international debates on the role of the state in health system governance, and uses those discussions to establish the legitimate role of the state in ensuring the appropriate use of evidence for health policy making. Specifically it examines the concept of stewardship which has emerged within recent global health governance debates, applying this concept to the stewardship of evidence. The stewardship function of national ministries of health was originally introduced by the World Health Organization in the 2000 World Health Report, but has been subsequently debated by authors who have associated the concept with a range of government and service provision functions. This paper develops a clearer and more nuanced understanding of the concept of stewardship to differentiate it from the related, yet distinct, concept of governance. We argue that the unique, and therefore conceptually useful, aspect stewardship lies in the way it allocates a single ultimate responsibility for the health of the population. The WHO has further established that it is national ministries of health, specifically, which possess the legitimacy to assume the functions as stewards of population health. The stewardship concept has been established with a range of functional characteristics, including the appropriate use of information to guide health planning and decision making. Taken together, these elements have direct implications for conceptualising how to ensure appropriate use of evidence in health policy. Ministries of health, as population health stewards, tasked with appropriate information use, possess a responsibility to ensure health system decisions are appropriately informed by evidence. In order to do this, they must establish institutional structures and procedures that function to synthesise, disseminate and apply health information and research evidence for use in policy making