Analyzing the social impacts of scooters with geo-spatial methods

© 2019 Elsevier Ltd Scooters, or gasoline powered two-wheelers, are becoming increasingly popular in the Netherlands. They provide fast, independent and affordable transportation, especially in urban congested areas. Unfortunately, they also have considerable adverse impacts on the environment and human health. The three most prominent impacts are associated with air pollution, noise pollution and traffic accidents. While the total contribution of emissions by scooters is relatively small compared to total traffic related emissions, they have a disproportionally large impact on their direct environment, especially when sharing roads with bicycles as in the Netherlands, where they are characterized as super-polluters. A scoping GIS based assessment, using theoretical and available secondary data, could identify routes with highest likelihood of scooter presence to estimate exhaust and noise impacts and related traffic accidents. Estimated are provided for the total population, and the number of childcare facilities within the impact areas. For future projections four different scenarios are analyzed. For the case study of the town of Enschede in the Netherlands the present noise/exhaust environmental impact of scooters is affecting at least 30% of the population and in the future this number can increase to 38%–53%

Transition to low-carbon economy: Assessing cumulative impacts of individual behavioral changes

© 2018 The Authors Changing residential energy demand can play an essential role in transitioning to a green economy. Environmental psychology suggests that behavioral changes regarding energy use are affected by knowledge, awareness, motivation and social learning. Data on various behavioral drivers of change can explain energy use at the individual level, but it provides little information about implications for macro energy demand on regional or national levels. We address this challenge by presenting a theoretically-based and empirically-driven agent-based model to track aggregated impacts of behavioral changes among heterogeneous households. We focus on the representation of the multi-step changes in individual energy use behavior and on a quantitative assessment of their aggregated impacts on the regional level. We understand the behavioral complexity of household energy use as a dynamic process unfolding in stages, and explore the barriers for utilizing the full potential of a region for emissions reduction. We suggest a policy mix that facilitates mutual learning among consumers

Demand-side solutions for climate mitigation: Bottom-up drivers of household energy behavior change in the Netherlands and Spain

© 2019 The Authors Households are responsible for 70% of CO2 emissions (directly and indirectly). While households as agents of change increasingly become a crucial element in energy transitions, bottom-up mechanisms facilitating behavioral change are not fully understood. A scientific understanding of individual energy use, requires eliciting factors that trigger or inhibit changes in energy behavior. This paper explores individual energy consumption practices and behavioral aspects that affect them. We quantitatively study the determinants of three energy actions: (1) investments in house insulation, solar panels and/or energy-efficient appliances, (2) conservation of energy by changing energy-use habits like switching off unused devices or adjusting house temperature, and (3) switching to green(er) electricity sources. To address this goal, we conduct a comprehensive survey among households (N = 1790) in two EU regions: Overijssel, the Netherlands and Navarre, Spain. We use probit regression to estimate how behavioral factors, households’ socioeconomic characteristics and structural attributes of dwellings influence energy related actions. Our analysis demonstrates that awareness and personal and social norms are as important as monetary factors. Moreover, education and structural dwelling factors significantly affect households’ actions. These results have implications for governmental policies aimed at reducing residential CO2 footprints and facilitating demand-side solutions in a transition to low-carbon economy

Quasicontinuum γ\gamma-decay of 91,92^{91,92}Zr: benchmarking indirect (n,γn,\gamma) cross section measurements for the ss-process

Nuclear level densities (NLDs) and $\gamma$-ray strength functions ($\gamma$SFs) have been extracted from particle-$\gamma$ coincidences of the $^{92}$Zr($p,p' \gamma$)$^{92}$Zr and $^{92}$Zr($p,d \gamma$)$^{91}$Zr reactions using the Oslo method. The new $^{91,92}$Zr $\gamma$SF data, combined with photonuclear cross sections, cover the whole energy range from $E_{\gamma} \approx 1.5$~MeV up to the giant dipole resonance at $E_{\gamma} \approx 17$~MeV. The wide-range $\gamma$SF data display structures at $E_{\gamma} \approx 9.5$~MeV, compatible with a superposition of the spin-flip $M1$ resonance and a pygmy $E1$ resonance. Furthermore, the $\gamma$SF shows a minimum at $E_{\gamma} \approx 2-3$~MeV and an increase at lower $\gamma$-ray energies. The experimentally constrained NLDs and $\gamma$SFs are shown to reproduce known ($n, \gamma$) and Maxwellian-averaged cross sections for $^{91,92}$Zr using the {\sf TALYS} reaction code, thus serving as a benchmark for this indirect method of estimating ($n, \gamma$) cross sections for Zr isotopes.Comment: 10 pages and 9 figure

Roughness of moving elastic lines - crack and wetting fronts

We investigate propagating fronts in disordered media that belong to the universality class of wetting contact lines and planar tensile crack fronts. We derive from first principles their nonlinear equations of motion, using the generalized Griffith criterion for crack fronts and three standard mobility laws for contact lines. Then we study their roughness using the self-consistent expansion. When neglecting the irreversibility of fracture and wetting processes, we find a possible dynamic rough phase with a roughness exponent of $\zeta=1/2$ and a dynamic exponent of z=2. When including the irreversibility, we conclude that the front propagation can become history dependent, and thus we consider the value $\zeta=1/2$ as a lower bound for the roughness exponent. Interestingly, for propagating contact line in wetting, where irreversibility is weaker than in fracture, the experimental results are close to 0.5, while for fracture the reported values of 0.55--0.65 are higher.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figure

O Ciberespaço e a mutação da realidade: o caso dos EUA

Understanding the way regional landscapes operate, evolve, and change is a key area of research for ecosystem science. It is also essential to support the placebased management approach being advocated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and other management agencies. We developed a spatially explicit, process-based model of the 2352 km2 Patuxent River watershed in Maryland to integrate data and knowledge over several spatial, temporal, and complexity scales, and to serve as an aid to regional management. In particular, the model addresses the effects of both the magnitude and spatial patterns of human settlements and agricultural practices on hydrology, plant productivity, and nutrient cycling in the landscape. The spatial resolution is variable, with a maximum of 200 X 200 m to allow adequate depiction of the pattern of ecosystems and human settlement on the landscape. The temporal resolution is different for various components of the model, ranging from hourly time steps in the hydrologic sector to yearly time steps in the economic land-use transition module. We used a modular, multiscale approach to calibrate and test the model. Model results show good agreement with data for several components of the model at several scales. A range of scenarios with the calibrated model shows the implications of past and alternative future land-use patterns and policies. We analyzed 18 scenarios including: (1) historical land-use in 1650, 1850, 1950, 1972, 1990, and 1997; (2) a buildout scenario based on fully developing all the land currently zoned for development; (3) four future development patterns based on an empirical economic land-use conversion model; (4) agricultural best management practices that lower fertilizer application; (5) four replacement scenarios of land-use change to analyze the relative contributions of agriculture and urban land uses; and (6) two clustering scenarios with significantly more and less clustered residential development than the current pattern. Results indicate the complex nature of the landscape response and the need for spatially explicit modeling

The effect of substrate roughness on air entrainment in dip coating

YesDynamic wetting failure was observed in the simple dip coating flow with a series of substrates, which had a rough side and a comparatively smoother side. When we compared the air entrainment speeds on both sides, we found a switch in behaviour at a critical viscosity. At viscosity lower than a critical value, the rough side entrained air at lower speeds than the smooth side. Above the critical viscosity the reverse was observed, the smooth side entraining air at lower speed than the rough side. Only substrates with significant roughness showed this behaviour. Below a critical roughness, the rough side always entrained air at lower speeds than the smooth side. These results have both fundamental and practical merits. They support the hydrodynamic theory of dynamic wetting failure and imply that one can coat viscous fluids at higher speeds than normal by roughening substrates. A mechanism and a model are presented to explain dynamic wetting failure on rough surfaces

Asymptotic theory for a moving droplet driven by a wettability gradient

An asymptotic theory is developed for a moving drop driven by a wettability gradient. We distinguish the mesoscale where an exact solution is known for the properly simplified problem. This solution is matched at both -- the advancing and the receding side -- to respective solutions of the problem on the microscale. On the microscale the velocity of movement is used as the small parameter of an asymptotic expansion. Matching gives the droplet shape, velocity of movement as a function of the imposed wettability gradient and droplet volume.Comment: 8 fig