The Contribution of Renewable Energy to a Sustainable Energy System

This report provides an overview of the main results from the scenarios analysed in the CASCADE MINTS project to assess the role of renewables in solving global and European en-ergy and environmental issues. The main conclusion is that renewable energy can make a sub-stantial contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving diversification of the European energy production portfolio, although other technologies will also be needed in order to achieve post Kyoto targets. The report outlines the impacts, costs and benefits of ambitious renewables targets for Europe in the medium term. It also presents lessons learned from taking the global perspective

Relativistic description of proton-proton bremsstrahlung

We investigate the influence of negative-energy states in proton-proton bremsstrahlung in a fully relativistic framework using the t-matrix of Fleischer and Tjon. The contribution from negative-energy states in the single-scattering diagrams are found to be large, indicating that relativistic effects are sizable. The rescattering contribution compensates some of the effect, but at higher photon energies we find that the relativistic contributions become increasingly more important. The cancellation found at lower energies is shown to be due to a low-energy theorem

Effects of relativity in proton-proton bremsstrahlung

We investigate the influence of negative-energy states in proton-proton bremsstrahlung in a fully relativistic framework using the T matrix of Fleischer and Tjon. The contribution from negative-energy states in the single-scattering diagrams is shown to be large, indicating that relativistic effects are important. The rescattering contribution compensates some of the effect, which is shown to be a consequence of a low-energy theorem. The net effect of negative-energy states nevertheless is of the order of 20% at higher energies. We investigate retardation effects in the nucleon-nucleon (NN) interaction by means of a one-pion exchange model, which gives effects of the order of 15% at the pion-production threshold. We furthermore modify the NN T matrix tb incorporate some of these effects, and find that on the level of single-scattering contributions they are of the order of 10%. We show predictions at incoming proton energy T-lab=190 MeV, where high accuracy measurements are being done at KVI, and conclude that even at these relatively low energies off-shell effects in the NN interaction and contributions from negative-energy states clearly show up

Covariant model for proton-proton bremsstrahlung: comparison with high precision data

We compare a relativistic covariant model for proton-proton bremsstrahlung with high-quality data from KVI. The agreement in large parts of phase space is satisfactory. However, remarkably large discrepancies are observed for specific kinematic regions. These failures are shown to occur primarily when the final two-nucleon system has energies less than about 15 MeV

EFAS Score — Multilingual development and validation of a patient-reported outcome measure (PROM) by the score committee of the European Foot and Ankle Society (EFAS)

Background: A scientifically sound validated foot and ankle specific score validated ab initio for different languages is missing. The aim of a project of the European Foot and Ankle Society (EFAS) was to develop, validate, and publish a new score(the EFAS-Score) for different European languages. Methods: The EFAS Score was developed and validated in three stages: (1) item (question) identification, (2) item reduction and scale exploration, (3) confirmatory analyses and responsiveness. The following score specifications were chosen: scale/subscale (Likert 0–4), questionnaire based, outcome measure, patient related outcome measurement. For stage 3, data were collected pre-operatively and at a minimum follow-up of 3 months and mean follow-up of 6 months. Item reduction, scale exploration, confirmatory analyses and responsiveness were executed using analyses from classical test theory and item response theory. Results: Stage 1 resulted in 31 general and 7 sports related questions. In stage 2, a 6-item general EFAS Score was constructed using English, German, French and Swedish language data. In stage 3, internal consistency of the scale was confirmed in seven languages: the original four languages, plus Dutch, Italian and Polish (Cronbach's Alpha >0.86 in all language versions). Responsiveness was good, with moderate to large effect sizes in all languages, and significant positive association between the EFAS Score and patient-reported improvement. No sound EFAS Sports Score could be constructed. Conclusions: The multi-language EFAS Score was successfully validated in the orthopaedic ankle and foot surgery patient population, including a wide variety of foot and ankle pathologies. All score versions are freely available at www.efas.co