Is hub-based pricing a better choice than oil indexation for natural gas? Evidence from a multiple bubble test

Oil indexation and hub-based pricing are two competing pricing mechanisms in the international natural gas markets. The debates over whether hub-based pricing is preferable to oil indexation have become intense among academics and practitioners, for example, whether and when East Asia should adopt hub pricing. This paper contributes empirically to the debate using a multiple bubble test. Adopting the generalized sup augmented Dickey-Fuller test proposed by Phillips et al. (2015), we show that more explosive bubbles exist in Japan and European gas prices than in the US prices. The argument is that hub-based pricing mechanism can better reflect fundamental values in the gas markets and thus is less subject to speculations. Given the recent trend of financialization in energy markets, gas prices are more likely to deviate from fundamental values when they are not clear to investors. Although oil indexation is simple and has been an effective tool over the past few decades, our results suggest that hub pricing is associated with less extreme price movements in the market and thus is a better choice for both policy makers and practitioners

Defects in complex oxide thin films for electronics and energy applications: Challenges and opportunities

This review focuses on recent progress in defect-engineered novel functionalities of complex oxide thin films for electronics and energy applications, and current challenges and perspectives.J.L.M.-D. also acknowledges support from the Royal Academy of Engineering, Grant CiET1819_24, and the ERC POC grant, 779444, Portapower. K.H.L.Z. is grateful for funding support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 21872116)

Bending behavior of woven fabrics

2005-2006 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalVersion of RecordPublishe

Delayed crack propagation in barium titanate single crystals in humid air

2007-2008 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalVersion of RecordPublishe

Substrate co-doping modulates electronic metal-support interactions and significantly enhances single-atom catalysis

Transitional metal nanoparticles or atoms deposited on appropriate substrates can lead to highly economical, efficient, and selective catalysis. One of the greatest challenges is to control the electronic metal–support interactions (EMSI) between the supported metal atoms and the substrate so as to optimize their catalytic performance. Here, from first-principles calculations, we show that an otherwise inactive Pd single adatom on TiO2(110) can be tuned into a highly effective catalyst, e.g. for O2 adsorption and CO oxidation, by purposefully selected metal–nonmetal co-dopant pairs in the substrate. Such an effect is proved here to result unambiguously from a significantly enhanced EMSI. A nearly linear correlation is noted between the strength of the EMSI and the activation of the adsorbed O2 molecule, as well as the energy barrier for CO oxidation. Particularly, the enhanced EMSI shifts the frontier orbital of the deposited Pd atom upward and largely enhances the hybridization and charge transfer between the O2 molecule and the Pd atom. Upon co-doping, the activation barrier for CO oxidation on the Pd monomer is also reduced to a level comparable to that on the Pd dimer which was experimentally reported to be highly efficient for CO oxidation. The present findings provide new insights into the understanding of the EMSI in heterogeneous catalysis and can open new avenues to design and fabricate cost-effective single-atom-sized and/or nanometer-sized catalysts

The highly rearranged mitochondrial genomes of the crabs Maja crispata and Maja squinado (Majidae) and gene order evolution in Brachyura

Abstract We sequenced the mitochondrial genomes of the spider crabs Maja crispata and Maja squinado (Majidae, Brachyura). Both genomes contain the whole set of 37 genes characteristic of Bilaterian genomes, encoded on both \u3b1- and \u3b2-strands. Both species exhibit the same gene order, which is unique among known animal genomes. In particular, all the genes located on the \u3b2-strand form a single block. This gene order was analysed together with the other nine gene orders known for the Brachyura. Our study confirms that the most widespread gene order (BraGO) represents the plesiomorphic condition for Brachyura and was established at the onset of this clade. All other gene orders are the result of transformational pathways originating from BraGO. The different gene orders exhibit variable levels of genes rearrangements, which involve only tRNAs or all types of genes. Local homoplastic arrangements were identified, while complete gene orders remain unique and represent signatures that can have a diagnostic value. Brachyura appear to be a hot-spot of gene order diversity within the phylum Arthropoda. Our analysis, allowed to track, for the first time, the fully evolutionary pathways producing the Brachyuran gene orders. This goal was achieved by coupling sophisticated bioinformatic tools with phylogenetic analysis

Recent progress of mesoporous silica materials

Since the synthesis of novel mesoporous silica materials in 1992, the materials have become a great demand in many research fields. The authors reviewed the synthesis of mesoporous silica materials and their classification, their formation mechanism, as well as the aspects of controlling porosity and recent progresses of their applications. The mesoporous silica materials may be found great utility in catalysis and nano-technology etc

Synthesis of ordered mesoporous aluminosilicate under a low surfactant/silica molar ratio condition

Ordered mesoporous aluminosilicate materials with atomic Si/Al ratios of 16 similar to 64 were synthesized at a very low molar ratio of surfactant/silica (0.12) by using aluminium chloride hexahydrate and TEOS as the sources of aluminium and silicon. The resulting materials were characterized by XRD, TEM, FTIR and nitrogen sorption. As the NaOH/Si molar ratio increases from 0.2 to 0.6, the products obtained change from hexagonal MCM-41 to cubic MCM-48. The quality of the product rapidly deteriorates as the aluminium content of the solid increases beyond a certain limit. XRD shows that the substitution of the silicon by the large aluminium atoms leads to the expansion of the unit cell