Testing Informational Efficiency in the EU ETS

The paper deals with the analysis of informational efficiency of the European emissions trading scheme (EU ETS) with the goal of stating whether or not the system has been able to achieve its proclaimed cost-efficiency within the first two trading periods. The efficient market hypothesis suggests that profiting from predicting price behaviour is difficult as the market price should incorporate all available information at any time. I analyse the EU emission market to see if it shows evidence of the weak form of informational efficiency. In order to analyse the weak form of informational efficiency assessments I analyse random walk properties such as, the unit root, autocorrelation and variance ratio tests. The results reveal the existence of informational efficiency only in the second trading period

New and old market-based instruments for climate change policy

We review and examine three market-based instruments to address the challenge of climate change: emission trading, emission taxes, and hybrid instruments. Our main contribution is the illustration and comparison of these instruments using recent results from theoretical research and practical policy experience. Hybrid policies that aim to combine taxes and permits emerge as a promising way forward. An additional contribution is that we also comment on two other related concepts, namely, innovation strategies and prediction markets. For the former, we show that, to make economic sense, the much publicized Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate has to rely on the same basic tool as the other instruments, namely, relative prices. For the latter, we discuss how prediction markets can complement traditional scenario analysis by experts. They are likely to improve the practical implementation of all previously discussed method

Economic Growth and Employment Effects as a Result of the Upper Austrian Flood Protection Building Program

Starting in 2002, a continuous building of flood protection infrastructure aiming at preventing high monetary damages has been taking place in Upper Austria. As a result of investments in these flood protection measures between 2002 and 2015, significant positive effects on the gross regional product as well as on the employment level have been generated. However, the macroeconomic effects are found to depend substantially on the import quota for required materials

Smart campuses : extensive review of the last decade of research and current challenges

Novel intelligent systems to assist energy transition and improve sustainability can be deployed at different scales, ranging from a house to an entire region. University campuses are an interesting intermediate size (big enough to matter and small enough to be tractable) for research, development, test and training on the integration of smartness at all levels, which has led to the emergence of the concept of “smart campus” over the last few years. This review article proposes an extensive analysis of the scientific literature on smart campuses from the last decade (2010-2020). The 182 selected publications are distributed into seven categories of smartness: smart building, smart environment, smart mobility, smart living, smart people, smart governance and smart data. The main open questions and challenges regarding smart campuses are presented at the end of the review and deal with sustainability and energy transition, acceptability and ethics, learning models, open data policies and interoperability. The present work was carried out within the framework of the Energy Network of the Regional Leaders Summit (RLS-Energy) as part of its multilateral research efforts on smart region

New and old market-based instruments for climate change policy

We review and examine three market-based instruments to address the challenge of climate change: emission trading, emission taxes, and hybrid instruments. Our main contribution is the illustration and comparison of these instruments using recent results from theoretical research and practical policy experience. Hybrid policies that aim to combine taxes and permits emerge as a promising way forward. An additional contribution is that we also comment on two other related concepts, namely, innovation strategies and prediction markets. For the former, we show that, to make economic sense, the much publicized Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate has to rely on the same basic tool as the other instruments, namely, relative prices. For the latter, we discuss how prediction markets can complement traditional scenario analysis by experts. They are likely to improve the practical implementation of all previously discussed methods

The Role of Renewable Energy in Regional Energy Transitions: An Aggregate Qualitative Analysis for the Partner Regions Bavaria, Georgia, Québec, São Paulo, Shandong, Upper Austria, and Western Cape

The study aims to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) of renewable energy deployment in regional energy transitions for the regions of Bavaria, Georgia, Québec, São Paulo, Shandong, Upper Austria, and Western Cape, which comprise a political and scientific network called the Regional Leaders’ Summit (RLS) and RLS-Sciences, respectively. The results classify current renewable energy usage for electricity, heat and fuel production, existing renewable energy potentials, sound legal frameworks to support renewable energy, ongoing research and development activities and expertise in renewable energy conversion and storage as strengths. That fossil fuels still hold a significant share in gross inland energy consumption, energy-intensive industrial structures continue to be supported by fossil fuels and grid access is limited for renewables are identified as weaknesses. The main opportunities are green economies, climate change mitigation and technological innovations. Associated threats are demographic developments, lack of social acceptance and renewable energy resource volatility. We conclude that these regions’ energy systems could potentially enable the realization of a strong integration of renewables and cover partially distributed, decentralized energy systems with embedded energy storage, and the application of smart technologies. Furthermore, we discover that the role of governments in guiding and managing regional energy transitions is highly important

Nuclear Localization of α-synuclein and Its Interaction with Histones†

The aggregation of α-synuclein is believed to play an important role in the pathogenesis of Parkinson\u27s disease as well as other neurodegenerative disorders (“synucleinopathies”). However, the function of α-synuclein under physiologic and pathological conditions is unknown, and the mechanism of α-synuclein aggregation is not well understood. Here we show that α-synuclein forms a tight 2:1 complex with histones and that the fibrillation rate of α-synuclein is dramatically accelerated in the presence of histones in vitro. We also describe the presence of α-synuclein and its co-localization with histones in the nuclei of nigral neurons from mice exposed to a toxic insult (i.e., injections of the herbicide paraquat). These observations indicate that translocation into the nucleus and binding with histones represent potential mechanisms underlying α-synuclein pathophysiology