Real estate opportunities in energy efficiency and carbon markets

Thesis (S.M. in Real Estate Development)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2007.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 67-69).Global interest in the effects of climate change has grown rapidly in recent years. The US federal government mulls a cap and trade system for large carbon emitters while states implement their own greenhouse gas schemes. Private industries are beginning to see the need to address their greenhouse gas footprints and are increasingly offsetting their carbon emissions. The real estate industry has been under little scrutiny in spite of being responsible for over 40% of all US greenhouse gas emissions. The real estate industry is in the unique position of being able to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through energy efficiency improvements that are low cost and that create value within the underlying asset. The objective of this research is two-fold: First, to examine the potential value and feasibility of energy efficiency improvements, and second to determine if there is sufficient value creation from abatement of greenhouse gas emissions, called offsets, to subsidize further energy efficiency measures. Through a case study example I examine energy efficiency improvements at two levels and determine the resulting greenhouse gas offsets on a state-by-state basis. Then I evaluate energy savings and greenhouse gas offsets across a low and high price range. Once the case study analysis is complete, I examine the magnitude of economic value resulting from energy efficiency improvements and the sale of greenhouse gas emissions offsets for the entire real estate industry. My analysis indicates that there is potential for significant value creation. Opportunities are focused in states where energy prices are higher and where greenhouse gas emissions from power generation are greatest. In the case study, capital investment in energy efficiency has an IRR range from 26.4% to over 125%.(cont.) Greenhouse gas offset value increases IRR further; providing an additional 26% increase in the original available energy retrofit funding. Net asset value increases from 1.1% in a low carbon price scenario to 5.5% in a high carbon price scenario. At the market level, efficiency improvements are worth between $40.3 and$201 billion annually. Greenhouse gas emissions are worth an additional $1.46 to$48.8 billion. The sum of energy efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions offsets have the potential to add between 1.0% and 6.1% to the value of the $4.03 trillion US commercial real estate market. I conclude that there is significant potential for value creation resulting from rigorous energy efficiency improvements and the sale of offsets in emerging greenhouse gas markets.by Aaron G. Binkley.S.M.in Real Estate Developmen

Control dependence for extended finite state machines

Though there has been nearly three decades of work on program slicing, there has been comparatively little work on slicing for state machines. One of the primary challenges that currently presents a barrier to wider application of state machine slicing is the problem of determining control dependence. We survey existing related definitions, introducing a new definition that subsumes one and extends another. We illustrate that by using this new definition our slices respect Weiser slicing’s termination behaviour. We prove results that clarify the relationships between our definition and older ones, following this up with examples to motivate the need for these differences

Project INTEGRATE: Developing a framework to guide design, implementation and evaluation of people-centred integrated care processes

Background: People-centred integrated care is an acknowledged approach to improve the quality and effectiveness of health systems in delivering care around people’s needs and preferences. Nevertheless, more guidance on how to effectively design, implement and evaluate the care process of people-centred integrated care services is needed. Under Project INTEGRATE, a framework was developed to guide managers in the assessment, transformation and delivery of these health service innovations. Methods: The framework is a product of the synthesis of operations, service and project management literature, relevant health care literature, and the analysis of four good practice integrated care case studies analysed under Project INTEGRATE. A first iteration of the framework was developed and then applied to one of the integrated care case studies to test its validity and utility. Results and Discussion: The tool combines a number of important considerations and criteria that have not been previously included in integrated care assessment frameworks, allowing for a pragmatic and comprehensive analysis of the care process. Conclusion: This framework can be used as a stand-alone or combined tool to guide managers to plan and evaluate the care process design of people-centred integrated care services; future work should apply this tool to other settings

Static and mobile DXA scanner in-vivo cross-calibration study

Copyright © 2012 The College of Radiographers. Published by Elsevier Ltd. NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Radiography. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Radiography Vol. 19 (2013), DOI: 10.1016/j.radi.2012.08.005In-vitro cross-calibration of DXA scanning equipment, with a phantom device, has been recommended for assessing agreement between devices co-located within DXA scanning services. This study evaluated in-vivo and in-vitro cross-calibration of a static and a mobile DXA scanner within the same service in their individual clinical settings. 50 individuals from a volunteer group were recruited to take part in this study and had DXA measurements made on two GE Lunar Prodigy Advance (GE Lunar, Bedford, UK) scanners. Results in this study showed that the scanners agreed, with no clinically significant differences in BMD measurements made at the same site on the individual devices used in this study. The in-vivo cross-calibration of the instruments was a useful experience, which demonstrated closely calibrated systems and raised the profile of the bone densitometry service within the hospital

The Candida genome database incorporates multiple Candida species: multispecies search and analysis tools with curated gene and protein information for Candida albicans and Candida glabrata

The Candida Genome Database (CGD, http://www.candidagenome.org/) is an internet-based resource that provides centralized access to genomic sequence data and manually curated functional information about genes and proteins of the fungal pathogen Candida albicans and other Candida species. As the scope of Candida research, and the number of sequenced strains and related species, has grown in recent years, the need for expanded genomic resources has also grown. To answer this need, CGD has expanded beyond storing data solely for C. albicans, now integrating data from multiple species. Herein we describe the incorporation of this multispecies information, which includes curated gene information and the reference sequence for C. glabrata, as well as orthology relationships that interconnect Locus Summary pages, allowing easy navigation between genes of C. albicans and C. glabrata. These orthology relationships are also used to predict GO annotations of their products. We have also added protein information pages that display domains, structural information and physicochemical properties; bibliographic pages highlighting important topic areas in Candida biology; and a laboratory strain lineage page that describes the lineage of commonly used laboratory strains. All of these data are freely available at http://www.candidagenome.org/. We welcome feedback from the research community at [email protected]

Tetrahymena Genome Database (TGD): a new genomic resource for Tetrahymena thermophila research

We have developed a web-based resource (available at ) for researchers studying the model ciliate organism Tetrahymena thermophila. Employing the underlying database structure and programming of the Saccharomyces Genome Database, the Tetrahymena Genome Database (TGD) integrates the wealth of knowledge generated by the Tetrahymena research community about genome structure, genes and gene products with the newly sequenced macronuclear genome determined by The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR). TGD provides information curated from the literature about each published gene, including a standardized gene name, a link to the genomic locus in our graphical genome browser, gene product annotations utilizing the Gene Ontology, links to published literature about the gene and more. TGD also displays automatic annotations generated for the gene models predicted by TIGR. A variety of tools are available at TGD for searching the Tetrahymena genome, its literature and information about members of the research community

From 'River Cottage' to 'Chicken Run': Hugh Fearnley-Whttingstall and the class politics of ethical consumption

Lifestyle television provides a key site through which to explore the dilemmas of ethical consumption, as the genre shifts to consider the ethics of different consumption practices and taste cultures. UK television cook Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's TV programmes offer fertile ground not only for thinking about television personalities as lifestyle experts and moral entrepreneurs, but also for thinking about how the meanings and uses of their television image are inflected by genre. In this article we explore how the shift from the lifestyled downshifting narrative of the River Cottage series to the 'campaigning culinary documentary' Hugh's Chicken Run exposes issues of celebrity, class and ethics. While both series are concerned with ethical consumption, they work in different ways to reveal a distinction between 'ethical' and 'unethical' consumption practices and positions - positions that are inevitably classed