Communication on Smart City Evaluation and Reporting In UK cities: Pilots, Demos and Experiments Case

Global trends towards urbanisation are associated with wide-ranging challenges and opportunities for cities. Smart technologies create new opportunities for a range of smart city development and regeneration programmes designed to address the environmental, economic and social challenges concentrated in cities. Whilst smart city programmes have received much publicity, there has been much less discussion about the evaluation and measurement of smart city programme outcomes. Existing evaluation approaches have been criticised as non-standard and inadequate, focusing more on implementation processes and investment metrics than on city outcomes and the impacts of smart city programmes. Addressing this, the SmartDframe project aimed to examine city approaches to the evaluation of smart city projects and programmes and reporting of their impacts on city outcomes. A number of ‘smarter’ UK cities were invited to participate, with agreement by city authorities from Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester, Milton Keynes and Peterborough to be interviewed about their smart city work. The findings provide a series of smart city case studies that exemplify contemporary city practices, offering a timely, insightful contribution to city discourse about existing and best practice approaches to evaluation and reporting of complex smart city projects and programmes

Diffusion and electron emission properties of duplex refractory metal thermionic emitters

Diffusion and electron emission properties of duplex refractory metal thermionic emitter

The Economic Impact of the Cotton Crop on the Texas High Plains, 2008

Early season high winds and late season cool temperatures have worked together to limit the size of the High Plains cotton crop. Over the past 5 years, the High Plains2 has averaged 4.44 million bales produced each year. However, Plains Cotton Growers recently estimated the 2008 crop to be around 3.2 million bales (Wade). If these production numbers materialize, the 28% drop in production will have significant impacts on the regional economy. The purposes of this briefing paper are to: (1) estimate the impact of the cotton crop on the High Plains economy, and (2) estimate the impact of a smaller than average crop.Agribusiness,

Laboratory experiments and models of diffusive emplacement of ground ice on Mars

Experiments demonstrate for the first time the deposition of subsurface ice directly from atmospheric water vapor under Mars surface conditions. Deposition occurs at pressures below the triple point of water and therefore in the absence of a bulk liquid phase. Significant quantities of ice are observed to deposit in porous medium interstices; the maximum filling fraction observed in our experiments is ~90%, but the evidence is consistent with ice density in pore spaces asymptotically approaching 100% filling. The micromorphology of the deposited ice reveals several noteworthy characteristics including preferential early deposition at grain contact points, complete pore filling between some grains, and captured atmospheric gas bubbles. The boundary between ice-bearing and ice-free soil, the “ice table,” is a sharp interface, consistent with theoretical investigations of subsurface ice dynamics. Changes of surface radiative properties are shown to affect ice table morphology through their modulation of the local temperature profile. Accumulation of ice is shown to reduce the diffusive flux and thus reduce the rate of further ice deposition. Numerical models of the experiments based on diffusion physics are able to reproduce experimental ice contents if the parameterization of growth rate reduction has expected contributions in addition to reduced porosity. Several phenomena related to the evolution of subsurface ice are discussed in light of these results, and interpretations are given for a range of potential observations being made by the Phoenix Scout Lander

Fuel and fission product transport through chemically vapor-deposited fluoride tungsten

Fuel and fission product transport through chemically vapor-deposited fluoride tungste

Activists and Corporate Behavior in Food Processing and Retailing: A Sequential Bargaining Game

This study examines the strategic interaction between food companies and activists using a game theoretic model of sequential bargaining in the absence of complete information. In a rather confined set of circumstances, findings indicate it is always in the best interest of the food company to comply with activists' demands. More frequently, however, there will be cases where compliance is not optimal, depending on the size of the expected effect of protest, cost of defending against protest, and the cost of protest to the activist.activists, corporate behavior, food industries, sequential bargaining game, Agribusiness,

Development of chemically vapor deposited rhenium emitters of (0001) preferred crystal orientation

Rhenium thermionic emitters were prepared by the pyrolysis of rhenium chlorides formed by the chlorination of rhenium pellets. The impurity contents, microstructures, degrees of (0001) preferred crystal orientation, and vacuum electron work functions of these emitters were determined as a function of deposition parameters, such as substrate temperature, rhenium pellet temperature and chlorine flow rate. A correlation between vacuum electron work function and degree of (0001) preferred crystal orientation was established. Conditions for depositing porosity-free rhenium emitters of high vacuum electron work functions were defined. Finally, three cylindrical rhenium emitters were prepared under the optimum deposition conditions

Far infrared spectra of amorphous and crystalline water ice and changes in these phases as the result of proton irradiation

Far infrared spectra from 20 microns (500 cm(sup -1)) to 100 microns (100 cm(sup -1)) of water ice were measured. Amorphous ice deposited at 13 K has one absorption band at 45 microns (220 cm(sup -1)). Amorphous ice evolves into a crystalline form with absorptions at 44 microns (229 cm(sup -1)) and 62 microns (162 cm(sup -1)) as the temperature is increased to 155 K. Spectra documenting this phase change are presented as well as spectra of crystalline ice at temperatures between 13 K and 155 K. Far infrared spectra of amorphous and crystalline water ice before and after proton irradiation are also presented. Changes in these two forms are discussed in relation to ices in comets, grains, and planetary satellites in various radiation environments. Observations of non-terrestrial clathrate hydrates are still lacking despite the fact that clathrates first were suggested to exist in cometary and interstellar ices over forty years ago. Spectroscopy, the most direct method of astronomical detection, has been hampered by the similarity of clathrate hydrate spectra to those of unenclathrated guest molecules and solid H2O. A methanol (CH3OH) clathrate hydrate, using a recently published procedure, was prepared and its far-IR spectrum investigated. The spectrum is quite differenct from that of either unenclathrated CH3OH or solid H2O and so should be of value in astronomical searches for this clathrate

Subsynchronous instability of a geared centrifugal compressor of overhung design

The original design analysis and shop test data are presented for a three stage (poster) air compressor with impellers mounted on the extensions of a twin pinion gear, and driven by an 8000 hp synchronous motor. Also included are field test data, subsequent rotor dynamics analysis, modifications, and final rotor behavior. A subsynchronous instability existed on a geared, overhung rotor. State-of-the-art rotor dynamics analysis techniques provided a reasonable analytical model of the rotor. A bearing modification arrived at analytically eliminated the instability