A new direction for US climate policy : assessing the first 100 days of Donald Trump's presidency

Following his surprise election, President Trump has translated several campaign promises into a relentless progression of executive measures. This article traces the first 100 days of his presidency as they relate to climate and energy policy, assessing the impact of personnel choices, his regulatory reform agenda, and his proposed budget blueprint, as well as executive or agency orders across various sectors. It also differentiates between the expected impact of federal policy choices and fundamental trends in the energy sector as well as the activist role of states and municipalities in shaping climate policy outcomes. Finally, the article discusses procedural constraints and judicial review as moderating forces, limiting the scale and speed with which the new president can overturn the climate legacy of his predecessor. In the end, the article argues that a retrospective of recent administrations reveals a cyclical pattern which both confines and perpetuates the alternating extremes of successive presidencies

Negotiating climate change in the UN : same procedure as every year? Not quite!

In 2007, Heads of State of eight major industrialised nations affirmed that the United Nations will remain ‘the appropriate forum for negotiating future global action on climate change.’ Within the U.N., however, a number of concurrent ‘tracks’ emerged for negotiations and discussions, accompanied by a certain degree of overlap and giving rise to questions on the mandate, scope, and limitations of each track as a pathway to a future climate regime. This article provides a retrospective on ten years of climate negotiations under the U.N., and traces important milestones and trends

The connection between the heat storage capability of PCM as a material property and their performance in real scale applications

Using phase change materials (PCM) for Thermal Energy Storage, the most important material property is their heat storage capability, usually given as h(T). Ideally, h(T) changes suddenly at a single temperature. However, many PCM change phase in a temperature range and show hysteresis. In addition, experience shows that even measurements with the same device on the same material can give different results when the heating rate, the amount of sample mass or the equipment device are varied. The question thus arises how to deal with different h(T) results when trying to predict the performance of a real scale application. This paper identifies the main origins of these effects and gives strategies for dealing with them.The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Commission Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013) under grant agreement n° PIRSES-GA-2013-610692 (INNOSTORAGE) and from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No 657466 (INPATH-TES). The authors would like to thank the Catalan Government for the quality accreditation given to their research groups GREA (2014 SGR 123) and DIOPMA (2014 SGR 1543). GREA and DIOPMA are certified agents TECNIO in the category of technology developers from the Government of Catalonia. This work has been partially funded by the Spanish government (ENE2015-64117-C5-1-R (MINECO/FEDER)). Dr. Camila Barreneche and Dr. Aran Solé would like to thank Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad de España for Grant Juan de la Cierva, FJCI-2014-22886 and FJCI-2015-25741, respectively

Thermal Recovery of Multi-Limbed Robots with Electric Actuators

The problem of finding thermally minimizing configurations of a humanoid robot to recover its actuators from unsafe thermal states is addressed. A first-order, data-driven, effort based, thermal model of the robots actuators is devised, which is used to predict future thermal states. Given this predictive capability, a map between configurations and future temperatures is formulated to find what configurations, subject to valid contact constraints, can be taken now to minimize future thermal states. Effectively, this approach is a realization of a contact-constrained thermal inverse-kinematics (IK) process. Experimental validation of the proposed approach is performed on the NASA Valkyrie robot hardware

Operational experiences of a TDHP system for solar cooling and heating of a canteen

Part of: Thermally driven heat pumps for heating and cooling. – Ed.: Annett Kühn – Berlin: Universitätsverlag der TU Berlin, 2013 ISBN 978-3-7983-2686-6 (print) ISBN 978-3-7983-2596-8 (online) urn:nbn:de:kobv:83-opus4-39458 [http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:83-opus4-39458]Solar cooling systems offer the possibility to use primarily the renewable energy source solar heat for space cooling. Moreover, a solar cooling system can also be used to provide heat for space heating, in the case of working in heat pump mode. Besides theoretical investigations practical experience is required to evaluate the performance of solar cooling in the field. This document presents the main results from a solar cooling installation for canteen cooling, which is in operation since 2007. The data evaluation shows a seasonal electrical performance factor of 26.1 for space heating and 6.5 for space cooling. A seasonal thermal performance factor for cooling of 0.4 has been determined

Investigating the relationship between interoceptive accuracy, interoceptive awareness, and emotional susceptibility

Interoception, the sense of the physiological condition of the body, provides a basis for subjective feelings and emotions. Anterior insular cortex activity represents the state of the body and varies according to personality traits, such as emotional susceptibility (ES)-the tendency to experience feelings of discomfort and vulnerability when facing emotionally-laden stimuli. The accuracy of perceiving one's own bodily signals, or interoceptive accuracy (IAc), can be assessed with the heartbeat perception task (HPT), which is the experimental measure used by most of the existing research on interoception. However, IAc is only one facet of interoception. Interoceptive awareness (IAw) is the conscious perception of sensations from inside the body, such as heart beat, respiration, satiety, and the autonomic nervous system sensations related to emotions, which create the sense of the physiological condition of the body. We developed an Italian version of the recent self-report Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (MAIA), tested its psychometric properties (reliability, dimensionality, and construct validity), and examined its relationship to ES, as assessed using the Emotional Susceptibility Scale, in a sample (n = 321) of healthy Italian psychology students (293 females, mean age: 20.5 years). In a subgroup of females (n = 135), we measured IAc with the HPT. We used a series of correlation/regression analyses to examine the complex interplay between the three constructs. We provide further evidence for a substantial independence of the IAc and IAw measures, confirming previous reports and current theoretical models that differentiate between IAc and IAw. Our analyses elucidate the complex relationship between distinct dimensions of IAw and ES, highlighting the need for continued efforts to shed more light on this topic

PCMs for Residential Building Applications:A Short Review Focused on Disadvantages and Proposals for Future Development

Phase change materials (PCMs) offer great potential as a latent heat energy storage technique to provide energy efficient systems in new and existing residential buildings. Due to their unique characteristic of high storage densities and latent heat properties, PCMs provide opportunities for greater energy storage in many applications for residential buildings. These applications include, but are not limited to, solar water heating, space heating/cooling, and waste heat recovery. This study reviews PCM systems in residential building applications, with a focus on their major disadvantages and concludes with proposals for future development. Several disadvantages of PCM use in the given application have been identified and include; super cooling, low thermal conductivity, phase segregation, fire safety, and cost. The issues caused by super cooling and phase segregation lead to thermal cycling degradation, limiting the useful lifecycle of the material. These issues could limit their potential in building applications, which require systems of a long lifespan. Low thermal conductivities can slow down the rate at which heat is distributed or absorbed from the building, which affect the occupants comfort and as well as the efficiency of the system. Ideas based on the current research on ways to limit these disadvantages are included in the study. This study also identifies that further research is required on novel maintenance ways for the PCM systems after they have been installed

Consumer Health Services and Collections for Hispanics: An Introduction

Hispanics are the fastest growing minority population in the United States today. Providing health information services to Hispanic patients and their family members can be challenging because of diversity. Library staff should be familiar with the specific health care needs and sociocultural characteristics of Hispanics. This article discusses the movement toward providing culturally competent health care and identifies socioeconomic challenges and barriers to health care faced by Hispanics. Suggestions are offered for communicating with this group in the reference setting, and a selective bibliography of Internet consumer health resources available in both Spanish and English is provided