5,153 research outputs found
World energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions : 1950-2050
Emissions of carbon dioxide form combustion of fossil fuels, which may contribute to long-term climate change, are projected through 2050 using reduced form models estimated with national-level panel data for the period 1950-1990. We employ a flexible form for income effects, along with fixed time and country effects, and we handle forecast uncertainty explicitly. We find an "inverse-U" relation with a within-sample peak between carbon dioxide emissions (and energy use) per capita and per capita income. Using the income and population growth assumptions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we obtain projections significantly and substantially above those of the IPCC
Economic development and the structure of the demand for commerial energy
To deepen the understanding of the relation between economic development and energy demand, this study estimates the Engel curves that relate per-capita energy consumption in major economic sectors to per-capita GDP. Panel data covering up to 123 nations are employed, and measurement problems are treated both in dataset construction and in estimation. Time and country fixed effects are assumed, and flexible forms for income effect are employed. There are substantial differences among sectors in the structure of country, time, and income effects. In particular, the household sector's share of aggregate energy consumption tends to fall with income, the share of transportation tends to rise, and the share of industry follows an inverse-U pattern.Financial assistance provided by the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research
Metabolic responses of osteochondral allografts to re-warming after MOPS(TM) preservation versus standard of care storage
Osteoarthritis (OA) affects ~90% of people older than 65, and associated costs top $100 billion annually in the U.S. One treatment available for large cartilage defects seen in osteoarthritis is osteochondral allograft (OCA) transplantation. Currently, tissue banks store OCAs at 4 degree C and implantation is recommended within 28 days after procurement due to significant loss in chondrocyte viability after this time. Because mandatory disease screening protocols typically take 14 days to complete, the window for surgical implantation is narrow, which severely limits clinical use. The MOPS(TM) protocol can maintain OCAs for 56 days. In this study, OCAs stored using MOPS(TM) and SOC protocol were assessed for cell viability and metabolic biomarker production
Anomalous strength of membranes with elastic ridges
We report on a simulational study of the compression and buckling of elastic
ridges formed by joining the boundary of a flat sheet to itself. Such ridges
store energy anomalously: their resting energy scales as the linear size of the
sheet to the 1/3 power. We find that the energy required to buckle such a ridge
is a fixed multiple of the resting energy. Thus thin sheets with elastic ridges
such as crumpled sheets are qualitatively stronger than smoothly bent sheets.Comment: 4 pages, REVTEX, 3 figure
Mars brine formation experiment
The presence of water-soluble cations and anions in the Martian regolith has been the subject of speculation for some time. Viking lander data provided evidence for salt-cemented crusts on the Martian surface. If the crusts observed at the two Viking landing sites are, in fact, cemented by salts, and these crusts are globally widespread, as IRTM-derived thermal inertia studies of the Martian surface seem to suggest, then evaporite deposits, probably at least in part derived from brines, are a major component of the Martian regolith. The composition of liquid brines in the subsurface, which not only may be major agents of physical weathering but may also presently constitute a major deep subsurface liquid reservoir, is currently unconstrained by experimental work. A knowledge of the chemical identity and rate of production of Martian brines is a critical first-order step toward understanding the nature of both these fluids and their precipitated evaporites. Laboratory experiments are being conducted to determine the identity and production rate of water-soluble ions that form in initially pure liquid water in contact with Mars-mixture gases and unaltered Mars-analog minerals
The first joint ESGAR/ ESPR consensus statement on the technical performance of cross-sectional small bowel and colonic imaging
Objectives: To develop guidelines describing a standardised approach to patient preparation and acquisition protocols for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed tomography (CT) and ultrasound (US) of the small bowel and colon, with an emphasis on imaging inflammatory bowel disease. Methods: An expert consensus committee of 13 members from the European Society of Gastrointestinal and Abdominal Radiology (ESGAR) and European Society of Paediatric Radiology (ESPR) undertook a six-stage modified Delphi process, including a detailed literature review, to create a series of consensus statements concerning patient preparation, imaging hardware and image acquisition protocols. Results: One hundred and fifty-seven statements were scored for agreement by the panel of which 129 statements (82 %) achieved immediate consensus with a further 19 (12 %) achieving consensus after appropriate modification. Nine (6 %) statements were rejected as consensus could not be reached. Conclusions: These expert consensus recommendations can be used to help guide cross-sectional radiological practice for imaging the small bowel and colon. Key points: âą Cross-sectional imaging is increasingly used to evaluate the bowel âą Image quality is paramount to achieving high diagnostic accuracy âą Guidelines concerning patient preparation and image acquisition protocols are provided
Relationships among pro-inflammatory and degradation-related biomarkers released by articular cartilage from osteoarthritic knees
"Orthpaedic Surgery, School of Medicine."Introduction: Osteoarthritis (OA) is a multifactorial disease often progressing from an initial insult or injury to whole-joint inflammation and degeneration causing pain and dysfunction ; Previous studies have indicated moderate to weak linear correlations between inflammatory and degradation related biomarker production levels by OA cartilage during culture ; This study was designed to characterize non-linear relationships among pro-inflammatory and degradation- related biomarkers produced by articular cartilage recovered from patients with knee OA."This study was funded by the Thompson Laboratory for Regenerative Orthopaedics."Neurological Surgery, University of Missouri School of Medicin
Solar Neutron Events of October-November 2003
During the period when the Sun was intensely active on October-November 2003,
two remarkable solar neutron events were observed by the ground-based neutron
monitors. On October 28, 2003, in association with an X17.2 large flare, solar
neutrons were detected with high statistical significance (6.4 sigma) by the
neutron monitor at Tsumeb, Namibia. On November 4, 2003, in association with an
X28 class flare, relativistic solar neutrons were observed by the neutron
monitors at Haleakala in Hawaii and Mexico City, and by the solar neutron
telescope at Mauna Kea in Hawaii simultaneously. Clear excesses were observed
at the same time by these detectors, with the significance calculated as 7.5
sigma for Haleakala, and 5.2 sigma for Mexico City. The detector onboard the
INTEGRAL satellite observed a high flux of hard X-rays and gamma-rays at the
same time in these events. By using the time profiles of the gamma-ray lines,
we can explain the time profile of the neutron monitor. It appears that
neutrons were produced at the same time as the gamma-ray emission.Comment: 35 pages, 21 figures, accepted for publication in Ap
Nanostratification of optical excitation in self-interacting 1D arrays
The major assumption of the Lorentz-Lorenz theory about uniformity of local
fields and atomic polarization in dense material does not hold in finite groups
of atoms, as we reported earlier [A. E. Kaplan and S. N. Volkov, Phys. Rev.
Lett., v. 101, 133902 (2008)]. The uniformity is broken at sub-wavelength
scale, where the system may exhibit strong stratification of local field and
dipole polarization, with the strata period being much shorter than the
incident wavelength. In this paper, we further develop and advance that theory
for the most fundamental case of one-dimensional arrays, and study nanoscale
excitation of so called "locsitons" and their standing waves (strata) that
result in size-related resonances and related large field enhancement in finite
arrays of atoms. The locsitons may have a whole spectrum of spatial
frequencies, ranging from long waves, to an extent reminiscent of ferromagnetic
domains, -- to super-short waves, with neighboring atoms alternating their
polarizations, which are reminiscent of antiferromagnetic spin patterns. Of
great interest is the new kind of "hybrid" modes of excitation, greatly
departing from any magnetic analogies. We also study differences between
Ising-like near-neighbor approximation and the case where each atom interacts
with all other atoms in the array. We find an infinite number of "exponential
eigenmodes" in the lossless system in the latter case. At certain "magic"
numbers of atoms in the array, the system may exhibit self-induced (but linear
in the field) cancellation of resonant local-field suppression. We also studied
nonlinear modes of locsitons and found optical bistability and hysteresis in an
infinite array for the simplest modes.Comment: 39 pages, 5 figures; v2: Added the Conclusions section, corrected a
typo in Eq. (5.3), corrected minor stylistic and grammatical imperfection
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