E-Learning for Teachers and Trainers : Innovative Practices, Skills and Competences

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The valuation of clean spread options: linking electricity, emissions and fuels

The purpose of the paper is to present a new pricing method for clean spread options, and to illustrate its main features on a set of numerical examples produced by a dedicated computer code. The novelty of the approach is embedded in the use of a structural model as opposed to reduced-form models which fail to capture properly the fundamental dependencies between the economic factors entering the production process

A stochastic movement simulator improves estimates of landscape connectivity

Acknowledgments This publication issued from the project TenLamas funded by the French Ministère de l'Energie, de l'Ecologie, du Développement Durable et de la Mer through the EU FP6 BiodivERsA Eranet; by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) through the open call INDHET and 6th extinction MOBIGEN to V. M. Stevens, M. Baguette, and A. Coulon, and young researcher GEMS (ANR-13-JSV7-0010-01) to V. M. Stevens and M. Baguette; and by a VLIR-VLADOC scholarship awarded to J. Aben. L. Lens, J. Aben, D. Strubbe, and E. Matthysen are grateful to the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) for financial support of fieldwork and genetic analysis (grant G.0308.13). V. M. Stevens and M. Baguette are members of the “Laboratoire d'Excellence” (LABEX) entitled TULIP (ANR-10-LABX-41). J. M. J. Travis and S. C. F. Palmer also acknowledge the support of NERC. A. Coulon and J. Aben contributed equally to the work.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Rapid detection of alkanes and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in oil-contaminated soil with visible near-infrared spectroscopy

Recent developments and applications of rapid measurement tools (RMTs) such as visible near‐infrared (vis–NIR) spectroscopy confirmed that these technologies can provide ‘fit for purpose’ and cost‐effective data for risk assessment and management of oil‐contaminated sites. Although vis–NIR spectroscopy has been used frequently to predict total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPHs), it has had limited use for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and there has been none for alkanes. In the present study, the potential of vis–NIR spectroscopy (350–2500 nm) to measure PAHs and alkanes in 85 fresh (wet, unprocessed) oil‐contaminated soil samples collected from three sites in the Niger Delta, Nigeria, was evaluated. The vis–NIR signal and alkanes and PAHs measured in the laboratory by sequential ultrasonic solvent extraction followed by gas chromatography‐mass spectrometry (GC‐MS) were then used to develop calibration models using partial least squares regression (PLSR) and random forest (RF) modelling tools. Prior to model development, the pre‐processed spectra were divided into calibration (75%) and prediction (25%) sets. Results showed that the prediction performance of RF calibration models for both alkanes (a coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.58, a root mean square error of prediction (RMSEP) of 53.95 mg kg−1 and a residual prediction deviation (RPD) of 1.59) and PAHs (R2 = 0.71, RMSEP = 0.99 mg kg−1 and RPD = 1.99) outperformed PLSR (R2 = 0.36, RMSEP = 66.66 mg kg−1 and RPD = 1.29, and R2 = 0.56, RMSEP = 1.21 mg kg−1 and RPD = 1.55, respectively). The RF modelling approach accounted for nonlinearity of the soil spectral responses and therefore resulted in considerably greater prediction accuracy than the linear PLSR. Adoption of vis–NIR spectroscopy coupled with RF is recommended for rapid and cost‐effective assessment of PAHs and alkanes in contaminated soil

Predicting bioavailability change of complex chemical mixtures in contaminated soils using visible and near-infrared spectroscopy and random forest regression

A number of studies have shown that visible and near infrared spectroscopy (VIS-NIRS) offers a rapid on-site measurement tool for the determination of total contaminant concentration of petroleum hydrocarbons compounds (PHC), heavy metals and metalloids (HM) in soil. However none of them have yet assessed the feasibility of using VIS-NIRS coupled to random forest (RF) regression for determining both the total and bioavailable concentrations of complex chemical mixtures. Results showed that the predictions of the total concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), PHC, and alkanes (ALK) were very good, good and fair, and in contrast, the predictions of the bioavailable concentrations of the PAH and PHC were only fair, and poor for ALK. A large number of trace elements, mainly lead (Pb), aluminium (Al), nickel (Ni), chromium (Cr), cadmium (Cd), iron (Fe) and zinc (Zn) were predicted with very good or good accuracy. The prediction results of the total HMs were also better than those of the bioavailable concentrations. Overall, the results demonstrate that VIS-NIR DRS coupled to RF is a promising rapid measurement tool to inform both the distribution and bioavailability of complex chemical mixtures without the need of collecting soil samples and lengthy extraction for further analysis

Subcellular investigation of photosynthesis-driven carbon assimilation in the symbiotic reef coral Pocillopora damicornis.

Reef-building corals form essential, mutualistic endosymbiotic associations with photosynthetic Symbiodinium dinoflagellates, providing their animal host partner with photosynthetically derived nutrients that allow the coral to thrive in oligotrophic waters. However, little is known about the dynamics of these nutritional interactions at the (sub)cellular level. Here, we visualize with submicrometer spatial resolution the carbon and nitrogen fluxes in the intact coral-dinoflagellate association from the reef coral Pocillopora damicornis by combining nanoscale secondary ion mass spectrometry (NanoSIMS) and transmission electron microscopy with pulse-chase isotopic labeling using [(13)C]bicarbonate and [(15)N]nitrate. This allows us to observe that (i) through light-driven photosynthesis, dinoflagellates rapidly assimilate inorganic bicarbonate and nitrate, temporarily storing carbon within lipid droplets and starch granules for remobilization in nighttime, along with carbon and nitrogen incorporation into other subcellular compartments for dinoflagellate growth and maintenance, (ii) carbon-containing photosynthates are translocated to all four coral tissue layers, where they accumulate after only 15 min in coral lipid droplets from the oral gastroderm and within 6 h in glycogen granules from the oral epiderm, and (iii) the translocation of nitrogen-containing photosynthates is delayed by 3 h. IMPORTANCE: Our results provide detailed in situ subcellular visualization of the fate of photosynthesis-derived carbon and nitrogen in the coral-dinoflagellate endosymbiosis. We directly demonstrate that lipid droplets and glycogen granules in the coral tissue are sinks for translocated carbon photosynthates by dinoflagellates and confirm their key role in the trophic interactions within the coral-dinoflagellate association

An ensemble-based approach for pumping optimization in an island aquifer considering parameter, observation and climate uncertainty

In coastal zones, a major objective of groundwater management is often to determine sustainable pumping rates which avoid well salinization. Understanding how model and climate uncertainties affect optimal management solutions is essential for providing groundwater managers with information about salinization risk and is facilitated by the use of optimization under uncertainty (OUU) methods. However, guidelines are missing for the widespread implementation of OUU in real-world coastal aquifers and for the incorporation of climate uncertainty into OUU approaches. An ensemble-based OUU approach was developed considering parameter, observation and climate uncertainty and was implemented in a real-world island aquifer in the Magdalen Islands (Quebec, Canada). A sharp-interface seawater intrusion model was developed using MODFLOW-SWI2 and a prior parameter ensemble was generated containing multiple equally plausible realizations. Ensemble-based history matching was conducted using an iterative ensemble smoother which yielded a posterior parameter ensemble conveying both parameter and observation uncertainty. Sea level and recharge ensembles were generated for the year 2050 and were then used to generate a predictive parameter ensemble conveying parameter, observation and climate uncertainty. Multi-objective OUU was then conducted, aiming to both maximize pumping rates and minimize the probability of well salinization. As a result, the optimal trade-off between pumping and the probability of salinization was quantified considering parameter, historical observation and future climate uncertainty simultaneously. The multi-objective, ensemble-based OUU led to optimal pumping rates that were very different from a previous deterministic OUU and close to the current and projected water demand for risk-averse stances. Incorporating climate uncertainty into the OUU was also critical since it reduced the maximum allowable pumping rates for users with a risk-averse stance. The workflow used tools adapted to very high-dimensional, nonlinear models and optimization problems to facilitate its implementation in a wide range of real-world settings.</p

Research Proposal for an Experiment to Search for the Decay {\mu} -> eee

We propose an experiment (Mu3e) to search for the lepton flavour violating decay mu+ -> e+e-e+. We aim for an ultimate sensitivity of one in 10^16 mu-decays, four orders of magnitude better than previous searches. This sensitivity is made possible by exploiting modern silicon pixel detectors providing high spatial resolution and hodoscopes using scintillating fibres and tiles providing precise timing information at high particle rates.Comment: Research proposal submitted to the Paul Scherrer Institute Research Committee for Particle Physics at the Ring Cyclotron, 104 page

Molecular transport and flow past hard and soft surfaces: Computer simulation of model systems

The properties of polymer liquids on hard and soft substrates are investigated by molecular dynamics simulation of a coarse-grained bead-spring model and dynamic single-chain-in-mean-field (SCMF) simulations of a soft, coarse-grained polymer model. Hard, corrugated substrates are modelled by an FCC Lennard-Jones solid while polymer brushes are investigated as a prototypical example of a soft, deformable surface. From the molecular simulation we extract the coarse-grained parameters that characterise the equilibrium and flow properties of the liquid in contact with the substrate: the surface and interface tensions, and the parameters of the hydrodynamic boundary condition. The so-determined parameters enter a continuum description like the Stokes equation or the lubrication approximation.Comment: 41 pages, 13 figure