Empirical estimates of the direct rebound effect: A review

Improvements in energy efficiency make energy services cheaper, and therefore encourage increased consumption of those services. This so-called direct rebound effect offsets the energy savings that may otherwise be achieved. This paper provides an overview of the theoretical and methodological issues relevant to estimating the direct rebound effect and summarises the empirical estimates that are currently available. The paper focuses entirely on household energy services, since this is where most of the evidence lies and points to a number of potential sources of bias that may lead the effect to be overestimated. For household energy services in the OECD, the paper concludes that the direct rebound effect should generally be less than 30%.     

Probabilistic assessment of financial risk in e-business associations

Business activities are a result of carefully formed associations between different users in order to achieve certain pre-decided outcomes. Decision-making in such associations is an important step and transactional risk analysis is one of the integral processes that facilitates this step. This paper presents an approach that determines the negative consequences (termed as financial risk) of forming e-business associations. Unlike other approaches, our model captures the different types of events and their uncertainties to determine the financial risk by using the convolution operator and expressing it as a probabilistic measure rather than as a crisp financial value. Such representation makes sense as the financial risk may be determined at a point of time in future where nothing is certain. Depending upon the complexity of the problem, we explain the different ways of using the convolution operator to determine the financial risk. The simulation result shows a better representation and understanding of the financial risk that will provide important inputs to the transactional risk analysis and the decision-making process.     

Cognitive control factors in speech perception at 11 months.

The development of speech perception during the 1st year reflects increasing attunement to native language features, but the mechanisms underlying this development are not completely understood. One previous study linked reductions in nonnative speech discrimination to performance on nonlinguistic tasks, whereas other studies have shown associations between speech perception and vocabulary growth. The present study examined relationships among these abilities in 11-month-old infants using a conditioned head-turn test of native and nonnative speech sound discrimination, nonlinguistic object-retrieval tasks requiring attention and inhibitory control, and the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (L. Fenson et al., 1993). Native speech discrimination was positively linked to receptive vocabulary size but not to the cognitive control tasks, whereas nonnative speech discrimination was negatively linked to cognitive control scores but not to vocabulary size. Speech discrimination, vocabulary size, and cognitive control scores were not associated with more general cognitive measures. These results suggest specific relationships between domain-general inhibitory control processes and the ability to ignore variation in speech that is irrelevant to the native language and between the development of native language speech perception and vocabulary. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The composition and temperature dependence of the sulfide capacity of metallurgical slags

The concept of optical basicity and its applicability as a means of correlating the available data on the sulfide capacity of metallurgical slags has been reviewed. An excellent correlation based on very extensive data at 1500 °C, which was discussed in a previous paper, is combined with good correlations based on considerably less data at 1550 °C and 1650 °C to quantify the effect of temperature on the sulfide capacity of slags. The combined effects of slag composition and temperature have been expressed in the equation, logC _s = [(22690 – 54640A)/7] + 43.6A − 25.2. Use of this equation permits the calculation of the sulfide capacity of a slag at any temperature between 1400 °C and 1700 °C simply from a knowledge of its chemical composition, and can be employed for virtually any oxide slag of interest in the field of iron and steelmaking. This, in turn, permits calculation of the equilibrium distribution of sulfur between this slag and iron or steel, provided that the oxygen potential is known or can be calculated from the degree of deoxidation applied.     

Intravenous immunoglobulin inhibits IgE production in human B lymphocytes

This study sought to determine the prevalence of spontaneous reperfusion of an infarct-related artery (IRA) and associated myocardial salvage in the absence of thrombolysis or angioplasty. Twenty-one patients with acute myocardial infarction received only heparin and aspirin. At a median of 18 hours after presentation, 12 patients (57%) had angiographic patency of the IRA. Technetium-99m sestamibi was injected acutely on presentation and again at hospital discharge. Acute and final perfusion defect sizes were measured. Their difference, myocardial salvage, was calculated along with salvage index (myocardial salvage/acute defect). Comparing patients with a patent versus occluded IRA, myocardium at risk was similar (16% +/- 12% vs 12% +/- 9% left ventricle, p = NS); however, myocardial salvage (9% +/- 9% vs -2% +/- 7% left ventricle, p = 0.01), and salvage index (0.62 +/- 0.37 vs 0.19 +/- 0.33, p = 0.01) were greater in patients with spontaneous reperfusion. Resolution of chest pain was greater in patients with a patent IRA (100% vs 55%, p = 0.003). Spontaneous reperfusion of the IRA occurs frequently in patients with acute myocardial infarction and is associated with significant myocardial salvage.     

Study on phosphate and sulphide capacities of CaO-CaCl2 slags

Experiments were carried out at 1175–1350°C to study the phosphate capacity of CaO-CaCl₂ slags and the sulphide capacity was calculated according to the correlation between the two capacities. At 1200°C the logarithm of the phosphate capacity increased from 24.5 to 26.5 with increasing CaO mole fraction from 0 to 0.22 in the slags and it decreased with increasing temperature. Sulphide capacity increased both with increasing CaO mole fraction and temperature. A good linear correlation was found between slag carbonate capacity and phosphate capacity as well as sulphide capacity. Optical basicity was used to evaluate the property of the CaO-CaCl₂ slag in the present study. The value of optical basicity of CaCl₂ is established as 0.63. The correlations of optical basicity with above mentioned three capacities were found to be linear.     

钢的连铸用保护渣的表征

在钢的连铸过程中,结晶器保护渣的性质强烈地影响着铸造的行为、钢的质量、以及连铸工艺的环境.本研究采用高温显微技术来研究保护渣的熔化行为,采用液滴测试方法来测定保护渣的熔化速率.结果表明:自由碳是控制保护渣熔化行为的主要因素.熔化速率随碳的反应能力的增加而增加,随着碳含量的减少而增加.     

Modeling and evaluating the feasibility of timing constraints under different real-time scheduling algorithms

The objective of the work described here is to provide a software tool to assist real-time system specifiers and designers to predict, at an early stage of the development process, the timing behavior of the system being developed. The timing behavior of the system is dependent on the scheduler which is the central component of any real-time system. Our tool (Simulation of Real-Time systems (SRT)) is used to model the timing aspects of a real-time system and to simulate the system with a particular scheduling policy so as to predict its behavior. This paper will present an overview of the capabilities of the system which is implemented using an object-oriented programming language (Smalltalk-80).This work has been jointly funded by the Science and Engineering Research Council, UK and British Aerospace, Warton, UK.