A review of life cycle assessments of renewable energy systems

A review of life cycle assessments (LCAs) of wind energy published in the past few years are presented in this paper. The aim is to identify the differences of the developed methodologies, in particular, the factors such as methods used, energy performance and influence of uncertainty. Each of the factors is addressed to highlight the shortcomings and strengths of various approaches. Potential issues were identified regarding the way LCA is used for assessing environmental impact and energy performance of wind energy. It is found that the potential of incorporating the quantification of uncertainty in the manufacturing phase has not been studied elaborately. A framework methodology has been proposed in this paper to address this issue

A hybrid Data Quality Indicator and statistical method for improving uncertainty analysis in LCA of a small off-grid wind turbine

In Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) uncertainty analysis has been recommended when choosing sustainable products. Both Data Quality Indicator and statistical methods are used to estimate data uncertainties in LCA. Neither of these alone is however adequate enough to address the challenges in LCA of a complex system due to data scarcity and large quantity of material types. This paper applies a hybrid stochastic method, combining the statistical and Data Quality Indicator methods by using a pre-screening process based on Monte Carlo rank-order correlation sensitivity analysis, to improve the uncertainty estimate in wind turbine LCA with data limitations. In the presented case study which performed the stochastic estimation of CO2 emissions, similar results from the hybrid method were observed compared to the pure Data Quality Indicator method. Summarily, the presented hybrid method can be used as a possible alternative for evaluating deterministic LCA results like CO2 emissions, when results that are more reliable are desired with limited availability of data

Privacy Attitudes among Early Adopters of Emerging Health Technologies.

IntroductionAdvances in health technology such as genome sequencing and wearable sensors now allow for the collection of highly granular personal health data from individuals. It is unclear how people think about privacy in the context of these emerging health technologies. An open question is whether early adopters of these advances conceptualize privacy in different ways than non-early adopters.PurposeThis study sought to understand privacy attitudes of early adopters of emerging health technologies.MethodsTranscripts from in-depth, semi-structured interviews with early adopters of genome sequencing and health devices and apps were analyzed with a focus on participant attitudes and perceptions of privacy. Themes were extracted using inductive content analysis.ResultsAlthough interviewees were willing to share personal data to support scientific advancements, they still expressed concerns, as well as uncertainty about who has access to their data, and for what purpose. In short, they were not dismissive of privacy risks. Key privacy-related findings are organized into four themes as follows: first, personal data privacy; second, control over personal information; third, concerns about discrimination; and fourth, contributing personal data to science.ConclusionEarly adopters of emerging health technologies appear to have more complex and nuanced conceptions of privacy than might be expected based on their adoption of personal health technologies and participation in open science. Early adopters also voiced uncertainty about the privacy implications of their decisions to use new technologies and share their data for research. Though not representative of the general public, studies of early adopters can provide important insights into evolving attitudes toward privacy in the context of emerging health technologies and personal health data research

Looking for Stars and Finding the Moon: Effects of Lunar Gamma-ray Emission on Fermi LAT Light Curves

We are conducting a search for new gamma-ray binaries by making high signal-to-noise light curves of all cataloged Fermi LAT sources and searching for periodic variability using appropriately weighted power spectra. The light curves are created using a variant of aperture photometry where photons are weighted by the probability that they came from the source of interest. From this analysis we find that the light curves of a number of sources near the ecliptic plane are contaminated by gamma-ray emission from the Moon. This shows itself as modulation on the Moon's sidereal period in the power spectra. We demonstrate that this contamination can be removed by excluding times when the Moon was too close to a source. We advocate that this data screening should generally be used when analyzing LAT data from a source located close to the path of the Moon.Comment: 2012 Fermi Symposium proceedings - eConf C12102

By our Gowns Were We Known\u27: The Development of Academic Dress at the University of Toronto

In this paper, the author discusses the development of academic dress in the context of the development of the institution; namely, how the intention to create what was described as a university akin to the ancient British foundations may have been reflected in the design of the scheme. Also described is how, in the years since the founding of this University, the mainly Oxbridge influence on the Canadian perception of hoods and gowns and indeed on their construction has diminished; however, the influence of both internal and external elements on the University continue to be reflected in the design and use of academic dress

Saturated Hydrocarbon Analysis of Liberty State Park Soils

Contaminated soils have been a concern in New Jersey since the Industrial Revolution (Gallagher, 2008). One site in particular has a variety of contaminants and is near the coast of Jersey City in Liberty State Park. Liberty State Park has been impacted by three significant changes. It was first a wetland in the 1600s, then became a New York dump site, and finally a railyard for the Central Railroad of New Jersey (Stanislaw, 2013). The whole land mass has mixed contaminants, including trace elements, heavy metals, organic wastes, and organic compounds. Currently, most of the state park has been dredged out and filled with “reclaimed landfill”. Only 102 out of the park\u27s 490 hectares were left unremediated and this is the area that is under research. Even with this site still being highly contaminated, it has abundant plant life that has followed a relatively normal succession. In normal conditions, one might expect that contaminants would interfere with plant growth because they would impede different enzymatic functions of the plant. The goal of this study is to find out what contaminants are present in the LSP soils. There are four subplots and a reference site that my research group studied: HMF, 146, 43, 25F, and 25R. HMF or Hutcheson Memorial Forest is a natural preserve that Native Americans used for agriculture. The sites 146, 43, 25F, and 25R are in different locations within the restricted, unremediated section of Liberty State Park (LSP) and have different levels of contamination and plant life. This thesis reports on a category of organic compounds called saturated hydrocarbons. Depending on how contaminated each individual site is, the abundance of the specific saturated compounds may vary. The numerous findings prove that HMF is a natural site by having fewer hydrocarbons, as revealed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GCMS). It also proves that 25R is the most organically contaminated site by its highest abundance of hydrocarbons out of all of the sites. Chapter 1 (Introduction): presents the background of the two site (HMF and LSP) and prepares the reader for the complex topics discussed in the following chapters and describes the significance of this study. Chapter 2 (Environmental Forensics): explains techniques used to investigate specific chemical compounds, how they relate to biotic processes, and how the chemical compounds affect the ecosystem. Chapter 3: (Experimental Methods): goes into the specifics of the analytical techniques and how they apply when examining soil contamination. Chapter 4: (Results and Discussions): shows the results from the experiment and interprets the data. Chapter 5: (Environmental Toxicology/Impacts): explains the health impact of each studied category of compounds, how the compounds enrich the actual sites, and compare overall contaminants (LSP) to the uncontaminated site (HMF). Chapter 6: (Conclusions): draws a final picture of what all the above evidence means, what we should do next, and how does the entire study relate to the people/communities that visit the LSP park now

Trust in Internet Shopping: A Proposed Model and Measurement Instrument

Despite the phenomenal growth of Internet users in recent years, the penetration rate of Internet shopping is still very low and one of most often cited reasons is the lack of consumers’ trust [e.g. Hoffman et al., 1999]. Although trust is an important concept in Internet shopping, there is a paucity of theory-guided empirical research in this area. In this paper, a theoretical model is proposed for investigating the nature of trust in the specific context of Internet shopping. In this model, consumers’ trust in Internet shopping is affected by two groups of antecedent factors, namely, “trustworthiness of Internet vendors” and “external environment”. In addition, the effects of these factors on trust are moderated by the consumers’ propensity to trust. Trust, in turn, reduces consumers’ perceived risk in Internet shopping. As a step towards the rigorous testing of the model, a 30-item measurement instrument has been developed with its reliability and validity empirically tested. This research contributes to the development of trust theory in e-commerce and provides a validated instrument for the measurement of various important trust related constructs

Why Do We Post on Social Shopping Communities?

Social shopping communities, representing a special form of social media, have offered fertile ground for members to communicate their opinions and exchange product information. The goal of our paper is to understand this new business model of social shopping communities and investigate why members voluntarily share information on social shopping communities. We integrate theories of collective action and social capital theory to construct a research model for investigating the motivations behind members’ posting behavior. By analyzing panel data collected from a social shopping community, we found that members posting behavior is determined by reputation, enjoyment of helping, network centrality, member expertise, as well as reciprocity. The results of this study provide important implications for both research and practice

An Integrative Model of Consumer Trust in Internet Shopping

Despite the phenomenal growth of Internet users, the penetration rate of Internet shopping remains low. Previous works suggesting that the lack of trust is the major impediment stops consumers from building exchange relationships with Internet vendors. In this study, we synthesize the three theoretical perspectives of trust and perceived risk theory to develop an integrative model of consumer trust in Internet shopping. We empirically test the research model with a sample of 405 students in a local university. The results show that both perceived integrity and perceived risk have the greatest influence on consumer trust in Internet shopping. Propensity to trust exhibits a significant moderating effect on consumer trust and its antecedents. The implications of this study are noteworthy for both researchers and practitioners