Threshold effects of energy price changes

This paper presents a theoretical model emphasising energy investments’characteristics of uncertainty and irreversibility. The theoretical modelsuggests threshold effects. Firms are induced to substitute away from energyonly if prices of energy exceed a certain threshold level and they reverse thetechnology only if energy prices are low enough. Estimating a simpleinvestment relation using panel data for the Dutch economy, we findevidence for threshold effects.

Threshold effects of energy price changes

This paper presents a theoretical model emphasising energy investments’characteristics of uncertainty and irreversibility. The theoretical modelsuggests threshold effects. Firms are induced to substitute away from energyonly if prices of energy exceed a certain threshold level and they reverse thetechnology only if energy prices are low enough. Estimating a simpleinvestment relation using panel data for the Dutch economy, we findevidence for threshold effects

Surface states in nearly modulated systems

A Landau model is used to study the phase behavior of the surface layer for magnetic and cholesteric liquid crystal systems that are at or near a Lifshitz point marking the boundary between modulated and homogeneous bulk phases. The model incorporates surface and bulk fields and includes a term in the free energy proportional to the square of the second derivative of the order parameter in addition to the usual term involving the square of the first derivative. In the limit of vanishing bulk field, three distinct types of surface ordering are possible: a wetting layer, a non-wet layer having a small deviation from bulk order, and a different non-wet layer with a large deviation from bulk order which decays non-monotonically as distance from the wall increases. In particular the large deviation non-wet layer is a feature of systems at the Lifshitz point and also those having only homogeneous bulk phases.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

De kwetsbaarheid van Femtech

Effective Protection of Fundamental Rights in a pluralist worl

Report on the Distribution of Dwarf Birches and Present Pollen Rain, Baffin Island, N.W.T., Canada

A distribution map for the dwarf birches is presented for the region from Frobisher Bay northward to Cumberland Peninsula. These shrubs are restricted to favourable habitats which, at the northern limit of the species (67 deg. 40 sec. N), are found on south-facing slopes above the immediate local cooling influence of the sea. Pollen studies within the zone of scattered dwarf birch indicate that pollen dispersal from these low, prostrate shrubs is minimal. Samples of moss collected beneath the bushes have 5-36% Betula pollen; whereas sites no more than 50 m away from Betula shrubs have percentages of <2%. These data will be useful in considering the Holocene and Pleistocene histories of these Low Arctic shrubs in the Eastern Canadian Arctic