A reply to “Historical construction costs of global nuclear power reactors”

Lovering et al. (2016) present data on the overnight costs of more than half of nuclear reactors built worldwide since the beginning of the nuclear age. The authors claim that this consolidated data set offers more accurate insights than previous country-level assessments. Unfortunately, the authors make analytical choices that mask nuclear power's real construction costs, cherry pick data, and include misleading data on early experimental and demonstration reactors. For those reasons, serious students of such issues should look elsewhere for guidance about understanding the true costs of nuclear power

Self-organized nanostructuring in Zr0.69Al0.31N thin films studied by atom probe tomography

We have applied atom probe tomography (APT) to analyze self-organizing structures of wear-resistant Zr0.69Al0.31N thin films grown by magnetron sputtering. Transmission electron microscopy shows that these films grow as a three-dimensional nanocomposite, consisting of interleaved lamellae in a labyrinthine structure, with an in-plane size scale of ~ 5 nm. The structure was recovered in the Al APT signal, while the Zr and N data lacked structural information. The onset of the self-organized labyrinthine growth was observed to occur by surface nucleation, 5–8 nm above the MgO substrate, due to increasing Zr–Al compositional fluctuations during elemental segregation. At a final stage, the labyrinthine growth mode was observed to be interrupted by the formation of larger ZrN grains

On spherical twisted conjugacy classes

Let G be a simple algebraic group over an algebraically closed field of good odd characteristic, and let theta be an automorphism of G arising from an involution of its Dynkin diagram. We show that the spherical theta-twisted conjugacy classes are precisely those intersecting only Bruhat cells corresponding to twisted involutions in the Weyl group. We show how the analogue of this statement fails in the triality case. We generalize to good odd characteristic J-H. Lu's dimension formula for spherical twisted conjugacy classes.Comment: proof of Lemma 6.4 polished. The journal version is available at http://www.springerlink.com/content/k573l88256753640

Illicit Substance Use Effects on Burn Related Reconstruction Patient Outcomes and Complications Following Hospital Admission: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Patients suffering from burn-related injuries admitted to the hospital concurrent illicit substance use are believed to be at an increased risk of poor outcomes and the development of complications following burn reconstruction, however data varies within the literature and remains controversial. This systematic review and meta-analysis compared outcomes and complications from studies during the years 1986 to 2017 between 15653 burn patients admitted to the hospital with substance use alcohol use reported by a positive toxicology screen (amphetamines, barbiturates, benzodiazepines, cannabinoids, cocaine, methadone, codeine/morphine, PCP, LSD, inhalants, solvents, aerosols, legal highs), or the patient on hospital admission to 299543 burn patients admitted who were not using substances. The PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, and Web of Science databases were systematically and independently searched. Clinical characteristics, illicit substance use, outcomes and complications were recorded. PRISMA and Cochrane guidelines where used throughout the review. Five of the 10 studies included in our study, were eligible for meta-analysis, with results from 8 of the possible 21 outcomes and complications queried. In conclusion, this systematic review and meta-analysis found that compared to patients suffering from burn-related injuries who did not use illicit substance, patients using illicit substances had a higher %TBSA of burns, longer hospital LOS, had a higher rate of intubation, had a higher rate of inhalation injury, longer ICU LOS, and increased wound/local skin infections

Quantifying the reductions in mortality from air-pollution by cancelling new coal power plants

Deep decarbonization paths to the 1.5 °C or 2 °C temperature stabilization futures require a rapid reduction in coal-fired power plants, but many countries are continuing to build new ones. Coal-fired plants are also a major contributor to air pollution related health impacts. Here, we couple an integrated human-earth system model (GCAM) with an air quality model (TM5-FASST) to examine regional health co-benefits from cancelling new coal-fired plants worldwide. Our analysis considers the evolution of pollutants control based on coal plants vintage and regional policies. We find that cancelling all new proposed projects would decrease air pollution related premature mortality between 101,388–213,205 deaths (2–5%) in 2030, and 213,414–373,054 (5–8%) in 2050, globally, but heavily concentrated in developing Asia. These health co-benefits are comparable in magnitude to the values obtained by implementing the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Furthermore, we estimate that strengthening the climate target from 2 °C to 1.5 °C would avoid 326,351 additional mortalities in 2030, of which 251,011 (75%) are attributable to the incremental coal plant shutdown.The authors acknowledge funding support from Bloomberg Philanthropies. This research is also supported by Basque Government through the BERC 2018-2021 and the Spanish Government through María de Maeztu excellence accreditation MDM-2017-0714. Jon Sampedro and Ignacio Cazcarro acknowledge financial support from the Ministry of the Economy and Competitiveness of Spain (RTI2018-099858-A-100 and RTI2018-093352-B-I00). Jon Sampedro acknowledge financial support from the Basque Government (PRE_2017_2_0139). The authors thank Patrick O’Rourke and Brinda Yarlagadda for their support with data processing. The authors declare no competing interests

How and when does big data analytics capability contribute to market performance

YesThis study looks at the relationship between big data analytics capability and market performance and how this relationship can be facilitated by adopting disruptive business models in competitive environments

Molecular Hydrogen and Global Star Formation Relations in Galaxies

(ABRIDGED) We use hydrodynamical simulations of disk galaxies to study relations between star formation and properties of the molecular interstellar medium (ISM). We implement a model for the ISM that includes low-temperature (T<10^4K) cooling, directly ties the star formation rate to the molecular gas density, and accounts for the destruction of H2 by an interstellar radiation field from young stars. We demonstrate that the ISM and star formation model simultaneously produces a spatially-resolved molecular-gas surface density Schmidt-Kennicutt relation of the form Sigma_SFR \propto Sigma_Hmol^n_mol with n_mol~1.4 independent of galaxy mass, and a total gas surface density -- star formation rate relation Sigma_SFR \propto Sigma_gas^n_tot with a power-law index that steepens from n_tot~2 for large galaxies to n_tot>~4 for small dwarf galaxies. We show that deviations from the disk-averaged Sigma_SFR \propto Sigma_gas^1.4 correlation determined by Kennicutt (1998) owe primarily to spatial trends in the molecular fraction f_H2 and may explain observed deviations from the global Schmidt-Kennicutt relation.Comment: Version accepted by ApJ, high-res version available at http://kicp.uchicago.edu/~brant/astro-ph/molecular_ism/rk2007.pd

Dynamic and structural stability of cubic vanadium nitride

Structural phase transitions in epitaxial stoichiometric VN/MgO(011) thin films are investigated using temperature-dependent synchrotron x-ray diffraction (XRD), selected-area electron diffraction (SAED), resistivity measurements, high-resolution cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy, and ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD). At room temperature, VN has the B1 NaCl structure. However, below T_c=250K, XRD and SAED results reveal forbidden (001) reflections of mixed parity associated with a noncentrosymmetric tetragonal structure. The intensities of the forbidden reflections increase with decreasing temperature following the scaling behavior I∝(T_c−T)^(1/2). Resistivity measurements between 300 and 4 K consist of two linear regimes resulting from different electron/phonon coupling strengths in the cubic and tetragonal-VN phases. The VN transport Eliashberg spectral function α^(2)_(tr)F(ℏω), the product of the phonon density of states F(ℏω) and the transport electron/phonon coupling strengthα^(2)_(tr)(ℏω), is determined and used in combination with AIMD renormalized phonon dispersion relations to show that anharmonic vibrations stabilize the NaCl structure at T>T_c. Free-energy contributions due to vibrational entropy, often neglected in theoretical modeling, are essential for understanding the room-temperature stability of NaCl-structure VN, and of strongly anharmonic systems in general

Developing and utilizing coopetitive relationships: Evidence from small and medium-sized enterprises in sub-Saharan Africa

The study proposes the notion of coopetition capability as an ability to cooperate and compete with rival firms simultaneously. We draw on the tenets of the resource-based and dynamic capability theories as well as insights from in-depth qualitative studies of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) in two Sub-Saharan African markets – Kenya and Zambia – to explore the conceptual domain of the coopetitive capability phenomenon. We further examine how external and internal environmental forces trigger the development of coopetition capability, and how coopetitive capability contributes to firm success outcomes. Findings from the study indicate that coopetitive capability is manifested in SMEs’ ability to proactively develop, coordinate, and learn from portfolios of inter-firm relationships with competitors. The study further finds that interactivities between regulatory requirements, customer demands, and firm-specific learning processes are major triggers of SMEs’ propensities to develop and benefit from coopetition capability. The study extends the literature on inter-organizational relationships by highlighting the conceptual domain and drivers of coopetition capability