An agent-based model for energy service companies

The residential housing sector is a major consumer of energy accounting for approximately one third of carbon emissions in the United Kingdom. Achieving a sustainable, low-carbon infrastructure necessitates a reduced and more efficient use of domestic energy supplies. Energy service companies offer an alternative to traditional providers, which supply a single utility product to satisfy the unconstrained demand of end users, and have been identified as a potentially important actor in sustainable future economies. An agent-based model is developed to examine the potential of energy service companies to contribute to the large scale upgrading of household energy efficiency, which would ultimately lead to a more sustainable and secure energy infrastructure. The migration of households towards energy service companies is described by an attractiveness array, through which potential customers can evaluate the future benefits, in terms of household energy costs, of changing provider. It is shown that self-financing is a limiting factor to the widespread upgrading of residential energy efficiency. Greater reductions in household energy costs could be achieved by committing to longer term contracts, allowing upgrade costs to be distributed over greater time intervals. A steadily increasing cost of future energy usage lends an element of stability to the market, with energy service companies displaying the ability to retain customers on contract expiration. The model highlights how a greater focus on the provision of energy services, as opposed to consumable products, presents a viable approach to reducing future energy costs and usage

Multi-utility service companies: a complex systems model of increasing resource efficiency

Domestic households account for a significant portion of energy consumption and carbon emissions in the United Kingdom. Gains in energy and resource efficiency are undermined by the continuing rise in consumption. A multiutility service company (MUSCo) could enable households to make efficiency improvements through energy technologies and demand management, thus reducing overall consumption. We present a system dynamics model for the domestic energy demand and supply system in the United Kingdom, in which MUSCos compete with traditional utility providers. The market transition toward a leasing contracted service is examined and various potential business models explored

It’s time to put our impact data to work to get a better understanding of the value, use and re-use of research.

If published articles and research data are subject to open access and sharing mandates, why not also the data on impact-related activity of research outputs? Liz Allen argues that the curation of an open ‘impact genome project’ could go a long way in remedying our limited understanding of impact. Of course there would be lots of variants in the type of impact ‘sequenced’, but the analysis of ‘big data’ on impact, could facilitate the development of meaningful indicators of the value, use and re-use of research

Automatically detecting open academic review praise and criticism

This is an accepted manuscript of an article published by Emerald in Online Information Review on 15 June 2020. The accepted version of the publication may differ from the final published version, accessible at https://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-11-2019-0347.Purpose: Peer reviewer evaluations of academic papers are known to be variable in content and overall judgements but are important academic publishing safeguards. This article introduces a sentiment analysis program, PeerJudge, to detect praise and criticism in peer evaluations. It is designed to support editorial management decisions and reviewers in the scholarly publishing process and for grant funding decision workflows. The initial version of PeerJudge is tailored for reviews from F1000Research’s open peer review publishing platform. Design/methodology/approach: PeerJudge uses a lexical sentiment analysis approach with a human-coded initial sentiment lexicon and machine learning adjustments and additions. It was built with an F1000Research development corpus and evaluated on a different F1000Research test corpus using reviewer ratings. Findings: PeerJudge can predict F1000Research judgements from negative evaluations in reviewers’ comments more accurately than baseline approaches, although not from positive reviewer comments, which seem to be largely unrelated to reviewer decisions. Within the F1000Research mode of post-publication peer review, the absence of any detected negative comments is a reliable indicator that an article will be ‘approved’, but the presence of moderately negative comments could lead to either an approved or approved with reservations decision. Originality/value: PeerJudge is the first transparent AI approach to peer review sentiment detection. It may be used to identify anomalous reviews with text potentially not matching judgements for individual checks or systematic bias assessments

Navigating the territories of transition: An exploration of the experiences of transnational social workers in Aotearoa New Zealand

© The Author(s) 2020. This qualitative study conducted three focus groups with transnational social workers (TSWs) in three cities of Aotearoa New Zealand. The aim of the study was to examine the transitional experience of TSWs, particularly in relation to any strategies and mechanisms existing in the host country to facilitate their personal and professional transition. A significant finding is that a coherent profession-wide programme for facilitating the transition is absent as the existing practices are mostly within the employer–employee relationships. Transitional experiences of TSWs are explained using the metaphor of ‘territory’ and some strategies for effective transition are suggested

Widening Participation: A Rough Guide for Higher Education Providers

Widening Participation in Higher Education has been a major area of government priority over recent years. One consequence of this has been an increase in policy and practice activity at national, regional and institutional level. Given this volume and range of activity, the need for colleagues in the sector to keep apprised of Widening Participation developments has grown ever greater. This guide has been produced to offer summary information on the main issues and questions relating to Widening Participation. It is a guide to practice rather than an overview of theory and research, although the ‘resources’ section at the end will point you in these directions. The information provided is in summary form giving readers an introduction which can be followed up via reference with further reading. The web version of this guide can be updated and we would welcome reader feedback on both information gaps and shelf-life of the information

A whole-of-government approach to population policy for Australia

The present social and political contexts are such that a population policy is likely for the first time in the country's recent history. The government has indeed signalled a population policy (focused on migrant settlement) will be put forward with haste (Benson 2018). Yet exactly what constitutes an appropriate population policy for contemporary Australia is still yet to be determined. The breadth of population-related issues lends itself to an approach which seeks to embed and contextualise population among wider government business – which requires a whole-of -government, joined-up approach

Understanding ethnicity in contemporary Australia using the census

Australia isamongstthe most ethnically and culturally diverse countries in the world. Despite this diversity, little is understood about how Australians identify with their ethnic heritage. Data collected on a national level via the five-yearly Census ofPopulation and Housing donot adequately capture the complexity and richness of Australia's ethnic diversity. This inadequacy could be contributing to the lack of diversity and parity representation of the population in politics, business, and decision-making. In addition, there are benefits for individuals, business, and planning (among others) for a more comprehensive understanding of Australia's contemporary ethnic profile. How the national enumeration could better capture contemporary ethnic identity in Australia is considered here, with consideration of previous attempts at collection of such information in Australia and elsewhere alongside potential improvements for the 2026 Census

Higher Education in the USA, Student fees, financial aid and access

In 2006 the English higher education system will be facing the introduction of variable - albeit capped - tuition fees, alongside a new system of government financial support for students and a market in institutional bursaries and scholarships. Concerns about the potential impact on different groups of students, and on efforts to widen participation in HE have led to the requirement for institutions to make Access agreements and to commit to certain levels of bursary and outreach support. This report of a study trip conducted in June 2005 looks at the US experience of fees, student support, student debt and the implications for access and admissions. It sets out the federal context then reports from the Illinois Student Financial Aid Commission, and two Illinois universities - one private (De Paul University in Chicago) and one public (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign). The US has always had a fee culture and a market driven economy in higher education, that includes private universities. The report describes current trends in rising fees, the shift from grants to loans and long-term student debt in the US, and the implications for access and admissions policies - including sophisticated modelling of student academic profile and financial circumstances of the kind that English institutions may have to consider adopting. The report draws out lessons for England and identifies some key issues facing those working to widen access in both the US and England -including the different expectations of equitable treatment in the two countries, the implications of long-term student debt accrued at increasingly high levels and the need to consider what policy and finance levers are appropriate in directing institutional policy towards access and widening participation