WorldWideScience

Sample records for savings regulatory hypotheses

  1. Energy conservation, energy efficiency and energy savings regulatory hypotheses - taxation, subsidies and underlying economics

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Trumpy, T. [International Legal Counsel, Brussels (Belgium)

    1995-12-01

    More efficient use of energy resources can be promoted by various regulatory means, i.e., taxation, subsidies, and pricing. Various incentives can be provided by income and revenue tax breaks-deductible energy audit fees, energy saving investment credits, breaks for energy saving entrepreneurs, and energy savings accounts run through utility accounts. Value added and excise taxes can also be adjusted to reward energy saving investments and energy saving entrepreneurial activity. Incentives can be provided in the form of cash refunds, including trade-in-and-scrap programs and reimbursements or subsidies on audit costs and liability insurance. Pricing incentives include lower rates for less energy use, prepayment of deposit related to peak load use, electronically dispatched multiple tariffs, savings credits based on prior peak use, and subsidized {open_quotes}leasing{close_quotes} of more efficient appliances and lights. Credits, with an emphasis on pooling small loans, and 5-year energy savings contracts are also discussed.

  2. Virginia Power's regulatory reduction program

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Miller, G.D.

    1996-01-01

    Virginia Power has two nuclear plants, North Anna and Surry Power Stations, which have two units each for a total of four nuclear units. In 1992, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission solicited comments from the nuclear industry to obtain their ideas for reducing the regulatory burden on nuclear facilities. Pursuant to the new regulatory climate, Virginia Power developed an internal program to evaluate and assess the regulatory and self-imposed requirements to which they were committed, and to pursue regulatory relief or internal changes where possible and appropriate. The criteria were that public safety must be maintained, and savings must be significant. Up to the date of the conference, over US$22 million of one-time saving had been effected, and US$2.75 million in annual savings

  3. Saving and credit cooperatives in Mexico

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Martha E. Izquierdo Muciño

    2015-11-01

    Full Text Available The Saving service and Credit Popular (Cajas de Ahorro y Credito Popular first appeared in Mexico in 1951 at the initiative of the priest Pedro Velazquez, similar to the popular savings banks that existed in Canada, which had been founded by Alphonse Desjardins in the early XX century.These savings service (Cajas de Ahorro were developing successfully in almost all Mexican communities, most of them remained faithful to the principles and ordinances of the church that gave rise to them, without the government participate in this activity and without policies encouraging or regulatory actions. It was not until 1991 when the General Law of Organizations and Auxiliary Credit Activities (Ley General de Organizaciones y Actividades was enacted. However in 2000 they began to emerge problems arising from fraudulent activities by some people taking advantage of loopholes established irregular saving services. Consequently and in order to solve these problems was changing the law. The last of the fraud occurred with the popular financial called FICREA (2015, to which was amended regulatory law again and while thus sought to avoid another fraud, who really was affected is a large amount very poor indigenous and peasants.Received: 03.06.2015Accepted: 17.07.2015

  4. What actions in the domain of energy saving?

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gourlia, J.P.; Richard, P.

    2007-01-01

    The energy saving potentialities are very often put forward to justify actions of mastery of energy demand. What are the possible substitutes and their result in terms of energy saving? What are the tools implemented and the services proposed by energy suppliers to end-users? What is the optimum mix between the regulatory measures and the market instruments to perform energy saving? What are the costs generated by such measures with respect to the expected results? How to sensibilize citizens to energy saving actions? These questions were debated during a round table which gathered 4 participants and two chairmen. (J.S.)

  5. 12 CFR 567.2 - Minimum regulatory capital requirement.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 12 Banks and Banking 5 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Minimum regulatory capital requirement. 567.2... Regulatory Capital Requirements § 567.2 Minimum regulatory capital requirement. (a) To meet its regulatory capital requirement a savings association must satisfy each of the following capital standards: (1) Risk...

  6. Saving, efficiency and management of electric sector demand

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sanchez de Tembleque, L. J.

    2007-01-01

    Spanish economic model of development is based on energy consumption, and its main source is imported fossil fuels, which have some environmental and scarcity consequences in the mid term, among others. These problems could be reduced in two ways: economic activity reduction or energy efficiency improvement. In the presence of these possibilities, It may be desirable to bet for saving and energy efficiency, to maintain the economic development. This assignment analyzes the main available regulatory and social mechanisms to promote saving and energy efficiency in the power sector, like systems to internalize social costs in the electricity price, efficiency standards, and encourage the new saving culture. (Author) 15 refs

  7. Implementation of energy-saving policies in China: How local governments assisted industrial enterprises in achieving energy-saving targets

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zhao, Xiaofan; Li, Huimin; Wu, Liang; Qi, Ye

    2014-01-01

    Local governments have replaced the national ministries that are in charge of various industries to become the primary implementer of energy-saving policies in China since 2000. This paper employs a case study-based approach to demonstrate the significance of local governments’ policy measures in assisting industrial enterprises with energy-saving activities in China. Based on the longitudinal case of the Jasmine Thermal Electric Power Company, this paper hypothesizes that sub-national governments have played a major role in implementing energy-saving policies in China since the 11th Five-year-plan period. A wide range of provincial and municipal agencies collaborated in implementing five types of policy measures – informational policy, skill building, improved enforcement of central directives, price adjustment, and funding – that reduced barriers to energy saving and motivated active pursuit of energy-saving activities at industrial enterprises. The case study demonstrates how an enterprise and local governments work together to achieve the enterprise's energy-saving target. The authors will investigate the hypothesis of this paper in the context of multiple case studies that they plan to undertake in the future. - Highlights: • We employ a case study-based approach to study policy implementation in China. • Local governments have played a major role in implementing energy-saving policies. • Local public agencies collaborated in implementing five types of policy measures. • Local policy measures reduced barriers to energy saving at industrial enterprises. • Enterprises and local governments work together to achieve energy-saving targets

  8. Regulatory focus and the family-work interface : the role of regulatory fit between cohabiting partners

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Demerouti, E.; Bakker, A.B.; Tetrick, L.

    2014-01-01

    The aim of the present study was to examine the impact of regulatory focus in goal pursuit and regulatory fit between marital partners on family conditions and the family–work interface. We hypothesized that when both partners are high on promotion focus (fit) they experience higher developmental

  9. Cost-savings for biosimilars in the United States: a theoretical framework and budget impact case study application using filgrastim.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grewal, Simrun; Ramsey, Scott; Balu, Sanjeev; Carlson, Josh J

    2018-05-18

    Biosimilars can directly reduce the cost of treating patients for whom a reference biologic is indicated by offering a highly similar, lower priced alternative. We examine factors related to biosimilar regulatory approval, uptake, pricing, and financing and the potential impact on drug expenditures in the U.S. We developed a framework to illustrate how key factors including regulatory policies, provider and patient perception, pricing, and payer policies impact biosimilar cost-savings. Further, we developed a budget impact cost model to estimate savings from filgrastim biosimilars under various scenarios. The model uses publicly available data on disease incidence, treatment patterns, market share, and drug prices to estimate the cost-savings over a 5-year time horizon. We estimate five-year cost savings of $256 million, of which 18% ($47 million) are from reduced patient out-of-pocket costs, 34% ($86 million) are savings to commercial payers, and 48% ($123 million) are savings for Medicare. Additional scenarios demonstrate the impact of uncertain factors, including price, uptake, and financing policies. A variety or interrelated factors influence the development, uptake, and cost-savings for Biosimilars use in the U.S. The filgrastim case is a useful example that illustrates these factors and the potential magnitude of costs savings.

  10. NegaWatt 2011-2050 scenario - Hypotheses and method. Technical report, May 2014

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2014-05-01

    This report proposes an analysis of the negaWatt 2011 scenario. It describes in detail the methodology adopted to elaborate this prospective scenario, and presents the major part of the hypotheses which structure this scenario. A first part presents the approach and methodology (constraints, scenario, model). The second part addresses the issue of energy saving and energy efficiency through a sector-based analysis (housing and office building, transports, industrial and agricultural production). The third part studies the substitution by renewable energies through a supply analysis: energy production based on biomass, renewable energies, and fissile and fossil energies. It outlines the major role of grids in the supply-demand balance. The results of the negaWatt 2011 scenario are presented in terms of final energy, primary energies, and impact on greenhouse gas emissions. Hypotheses and results related to the different sectors (building, transports, industry and agriculture, energy production) are given in appendix

  11. 17 CFR 230.237 - Exemption for offers and sales to certain Canadian tax-deferred retirement savings accounts.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... laws of Canada, the laws of any province or territory of Canada, and the rules or regulations of any federal, provincial, or territorial regulatory authority, or any self-regulatory authority, of Canada. (2... “Registered Retirement Savings Plan” or “Registered Retirement Income Fund” administered under Canadian law...

  12. Impacts of the regulatory model for market risk capital: application in a special savings company, an insurance company, and a pension fund

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Betty Lilian Chan

    Full Text Available ABSTRACT In line with the regulation brought in by Solvency II, the Superintendence of Private Insurance (Susep introduced the market risk capital requirement at the end of 2015, with 50% of the minimum capital for this type of risk being required by December 31st 2016 and 100% the following year. This regulatory model consists of calculating parametric value at risk with a 99% confidence level and a three month time horizon, using the net exposure of expected cash flows from assets and liabilities and a covariance matrix updated with market data up to July 2014. One limitation of this regulatory approach is that the updating of the covariance matrix depends on prior approval by the National Council of Private Insurance, which can limit the frequency the covariance matrix is updated and the model’s adherence to the current market reality. As this matrix considers the period before the presidential election, the country’s loss of investment grade status, and the impeachment process, which all contributed to an increase in market volatility, this paper analyses the impacts of applying the regulatory model, considering the market volatility updated to December 31st 2015, for a special savings company (sociedade de capitalização, an insurance company, and an pension fund. Furthermore, the paper discusses the practical implications of the new market risk requirement for managing the investments of the entities supervised by Susep, listing the various assumptions that can be used in the regulated entities’ Asset and Liability Management decision models and possible trade-offs to be addressed in this process.

  13. Dental Hypotheses: Seeks to Publish Hypotheses from All Areas of Dentistry

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Edward F. Rossomando

    2010-07-01

    Full Text Available Starting a new open access journal in a rapid growing scientific panorama is a severe challenge. However, the first issue of dental hypotheses is now history and the even skeptics can appreciate that dental hypotheses is a success - it is a journal of high quality that provides an outlet for publication of articles that encourage readers to question dental paradigms. But dental hypotheses readers might have noticed that the majority of the articles published in the first issue of dental hypotheses concern clinical dentistry. However, dental hypotheses editors recognize that there are many other areas in dentistry that present challenges and that our readers may offer suggestions for their solution. Some of these challenges relate to: dental education; digital dental technology; teledentistry and access to dental care; dental practice issues, such as, dental office design, dental office management, the slow rate of acceptance of innovative technology in the dental office; and issues related to innovation and dental entrepreneurship including intellectual property protection. Nevertheless, the dental profession faces many challenges - in many areas - and with the publication of dental hypotheses our profession has a venue for presentation of possible solutions. If you have developed a hypothesis that might help, please share it with your colleagues. As many have noted, the intellectual power of the global village in which we now live is formidable. The internet has provided the technology to bring us together and dental hypotheses has provided the venue. Please use it. New radical, speculative and non-mainstream scientific ideas are always welcome.

  14. Regulatory and cost barriers are likely to limit biosimilar development and expected savings in the near future.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grabowski, Henry G; Guha, Rahul; Salgado, Maria

    2014-06-01

    In March 2010 Congress established an abbreviated Food and Drug Administration approval pathway for biosimilars-drugs that are very similar but not identical to a reference biological product and cost less. Because bringing biosimilars to the market currently requires large investments of money, fewer biosimilars are expected to enter the biologics market than has been the case with generic drugs entering the small-molecule drug market. Additionally, given the high regulatory hurdles to obtaining interchangeability-which would allow pharmacists to substitute a biosimilar for its reference product, subject to evolving state substitution laws-most biosimilars will likely compete as therapeutic alternatives instead of as therapeutic equivalents. In other words, biosimilars will need to compete with their reference product on the basis of quality; price; and manufacturer's reputation with physicians, insurers, and patient groups. Biosimilars also will face dynamic competition from new biologics in the same therapeutic class-including "biobetters," which offer incremental improvements on reference products, such as extended duration of action. The prospects for significant cost savings from the use of biosimilars appear to be limited for the next several years, but their use should increase over time because of both demand- and supply-side factors. Project HOPE—The People-to-People Health Foundation, Inc.

  15. Global Regulatory Differences for Gene- and Cell-Based Therapies

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Coppens, Delphi G M; De Bruin, Marie L; Leufkens, Hubert G M

    2017-01-01

    Gene- and cell-based therapies (GCTs) offer potential new treatment options for unmet medical needs. However, the use of conventional regulatory requirements for medicinal products to approve GCTs may impede patient access and therapeutic innovation. Furthermore, requirements differ between...... jurisdictions, complicating the global regulatory landscape. We provide a comparative overview of regulatory requirements for GCT approval in five jurisdictions and hypothesize on the consequences of the observed global differences on patient access and therapeutic innovation....

  16. Energy saving in residential and tertiary sectors: regulations, inciting measures and consumer attitude

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Arnaud, P.; Aubert, D.; Grel, P.; Herant, P.; Molia, J.P.; Thelinge, H.

    2007-01-01

    Energy saving regulations in the residential and tertiary sectors are under permanent evolution. What are the most significant rules already existing and under preparation? What is the position of the natural gas industry with respect to this regulatory environment? Is there more specific regulatory measures that would be needed to reach the CO 2 abatement goals? What are the means to sensibilize consumers? What are the contributions of the building industry and of energy services? This workshop gathered five experts and a chairman who debated these different points. (J.S.)

  17. Phylemon 2.0: a suite of web-tools for molecular evolution, phylogenetics, phylogenomics and hypotheses testing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sánchez, Rubén; Serra, François; Tárraga, Joaquín; Medina, Ignacio; Carbonell, José; Pulido, Luis; de María, Alejandro; Capella-Gutíerrez, Salvador; Huerta-Cepas, Jaime; Gabaldón, Toni; Dopazo, Joaquín; Dopazo, Hernán

    2011-07-01

    Phylemon 2.0 is a new release of the suite of web tools for molecular evolution, phylogenetics, phylogenomics and hypotheses testing. It has been designed as a response to the increasing demand of molecular sequence analyses for experts and non-expert users. Phylemon 2.0 has several unique features that differentiates it from other similar web resources: (i) it offers an integrated environment that enables evolutionary analyses, format conversion, file storage and edition of results; (ii) it suggests further analyses, thereby guiding the users through the web server; and (iii) it allows users to design and save phylogenetic pipelines to be used over multiple genes (phylogenomics). Altogether, Phylemon 2.0 integrates a suite of 30 tools covering sequence alignment reconstruction and trimming; tree reconstruction, visualization and manipulation; and evolutionary hypotheses testing.

  18. Phylemon 2.0: a suite of web-tools for molecular evolution, phylogenetics, phylogenomics and hypotheses testing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sánchez, Rubén; Serra, François; Tárraga, Joaquín; Medina, Ignacio; Carbonell, José; Pulido, Luis; de María, Alejandro; Capella-Gutíerrez, Salvador; Huerta-Cepas, Jaime; Gabaldón, Toni; Dopazo, Joaquín; Dopazo, Hernán

    2011-01-01

    Phylemon 2.0 is a new release of the suite of web tools for molecular evolution, phylogenetics, phylogenomics and hypotheses testing. It has been designed as a response to the increasing demand of molecular sequence analyses for experts and non-expert users. Phylemon 2.0 has several unique features that differentiates it from other similar web resources: (i) it offers an integrated environment that enables evolutionary analyses, format conversion, file storage and edition of results; (ii) it suggests further analyses, thereby guiding the users through the web server; and (iii) it allows users to design and save phylogenetic pipelines to be used over multiple genes (phylogenomics). Altogether, Phylemon 2.0 integrates a suite of 30 tools covering sequence alignment reconstruction and trimming; tree reconstruction, visualization and manipulation; and evolutionary hypotheses testing. PMID:21646336

  19. Trigeneration primary energy saving evaluation for energy planning and policy development

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Chicco, Gianfranco; Mancarella, Pierluigi

    2007-01-01

    Trigeneration or combined heat, cooling and power (CHCP) is becoming an increasingly important energy option, particularly on a small-scale basis (below 1 MW e ), with several alternatives nowadays available for the cooling power production and the coupling to cogeneration systems. This paper deals with the introduction of a suitable framework for assessing the energy saving performance of trigeneration alternatives, orientated towards energy planning studies and the development of regulatory policies. In particular, a new generalized performance indicator-the trigeneration primary energy saving (TPES)-is introduced and discussed, with the aim of effectively evaluating the primary energy savings from different CHCP alternatives. The potential of the TPES indicator is illustrated through specific analyses run over different combinations of trigeneration equipment, providing numerical examples based on time-domain simulations to illustrate the dependence of the energy saving characteristics on the CHCP system configurations and equipment, as well as on the loading levels. In addition, the key aspect of adequately establishing the reference efficiencies for the conventional separate production of electrical, thermal and cooling power is addressed in detail. This aspect affects both equipment selection and potential profitability of the considered solutions under the outlook of receiving financial incentives

  20. Household Savings

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Browning, Martin; Lusardi, Annamaria

    suggested in the informal saving literature can be captured in the standard optimizing model. Particular attention is given to recent work on the precautionary motive and its implications for saving and consumption behavior. We also discuss the "behavioral" or "psychological" approach that eschews the use......In this survey, we review the recent theoretical and empirical literature on household saving and consumption. The discussion is structured around a list of motives for saving and how well the standard theory captures these motives. We show that almost all of the motives for saving that have been...

  1. Assessment of the benefits and impacts in the U.S. Nuclear Power Industry of hypothesized lower occupational dose limits

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Andersen, R.L.; Schmitt, J.F. [Nuclear Energy Institute, Washington, DC (United States)

    1995-03-01

    The International Commission on Radiological Protection and the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements have issued recommendations that would limit occupational exposure of individuals to doses lower than regulatory limits contained in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission`s 10 CFR Part 20, {open_quotes}Standards for Protection Against Radiation{close_quotes}. Because of this situation, there is interest in the potential benefits and impacts that would be associated with movement of the NRC regulatory limits toward the advisory bodies recommendations. The records of occupational worker doses in the U.S. commercial nuclear power industry show that the vast majority of these workers have doses that are significantly below the regulatory limit of 50 mSv (5 rem) per year. Some workers doses do approach the limits, however. This is most common in the case of specially skilled workers, especially those with skills utilized in support of plant outage work. Any consideration of the potential benefits and impacts of hypothesized lower dose limits must address these workers as an important input to the overall assessment. There are also, of course, many other areas in which the benefits and impacts must be evaluated. To prepare to provide valid, constructive input on this matter, the U.S. nuclear power industry is undertaking an assessment, facilitated by the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), of the potential benefits and impacts at its facilities associated with hypothesized lower occupational dose limits. Some preliminary results available to date from this assessment are provided.

  2. Assessment of the benefits and impacts in the U.S. Nuclear Power Industry of hypothesized lower occupational dose limits

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Andersen, R.L.; Schmitt, J.F.

    1995-01-01

    The International Commission on Radiological Protection and the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements have issued recommendations that would limit occupational exposure of individuals to doses lower than regulatory limits contained in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's 10 CFR Part 20, open-quotes Standards for Protection Against Radiationclose quotes. Because of this situation, there is interest in the potential benefits and impacts that would be associated with movement of the NRC regulatory limits toward the advisory bodies recommendations. The records of occupational worker doses in the U.S. commercial nuclear power industry show that the vast majority of these workers have doses that are significantly below the regulatory limit of 50 mSv (5 rem) per year. Some workers doses do approach the limits, however. This is most common in the case of specially skilled workers, especially those with skills utilized in support of plant outage work. Any consideration of the potential benefits and impacts of hypothesized lower dose limits must address these workers as an important input to the overall assessment. There are also, of course, many other areas in which the benefits and impacts must be evaluated. To prepare to provide valid, constructive input on this matter, the U.S. nuclear power industry is undertaking an assessment, facilitated by the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), of the potential benefits and impacts at its facilities associated with hypothesized lower occupational dose limits. Some preliminary results available to date from this assessment are provided

  3. Saving in cycles: how to get people to save more money.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tam, Leona; Dholakia, Utpal

    2014-02-01

    Low personal savings rates are an important social issue in the United States. We propose and test one particular method to get people to save more money that is based on the cyclical time orientation. In contrast to conventional, popular methods that encourage individuals to ignore past mistakes, focus on the future, and set goals to save money, our proposed method frames the savings task in cyclical terms, emphasizing the present. Across the studies, individuals who used our proposed cyclical savings method, compared with individuals who used a linear savings method, provided an average of 74% higher savings estimates and saved an average of 78% more money. We also found that the cyclical savings method was more efficacious because it increased implementation planning and lowered future optimism regarding saving money.

  4. Adopting a surgical safety checklist could save money and improve the quality of care in U.S. hospitals.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Semel, Marcus E; Resch, Stephen; Haynes, Alex B; Funk, Luke M; Bader, Angela; Berry, William R; Weiser, Thomas G; Gawande, Atul A

    2010-09-01

    Use of the World Health Organization's Surgical Safety Checklist has been associated with a significant reduction in major postoperative complications after inpatient surgery. We hypothesized that implementing the checklist in the United States would generate cost savings for hospitals. We performed a decision analysis comparing implementation of the checklist to existing practice in U.S. hospitals. In a hospital with a baseline major complication rate after surgery of at least 3 percent, the checklist generates cost savings once it prevents at least five major complications. Using the checklist would both save money and improve the quality of care in hospitals throughout the United States.

  5. Self-Policing Statutes: Do They Reduce Pollution and Save Regulatory Costs?

    OpenAIRE

    Santiago Guerrero; Robert Innes

    2013-01-01

    State-level statutes provide firms that engage in environmental self-audits, and that self-report their environmental violations, a variety of regulatory rewards, including "immunity" from penalties and "privilege" for information contained in self-audits. This article studies a panel of state-level industries from 1989 through 2003, to determine the effects of the different types of statutes on toxic pollution and government inspections. We find that, by encouraging self-auditing, privilege ...

  6. Private Sector Savings

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Pitonáková Renáta

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available The majority of household savings are in the form of bank deposits. It is therefore of interest for credit institutions to tailor their deposit policy for getting finances from non-banking entities and to provide the private sector with the loans that are necessary for investment activities and consumption. This paper deals with the determinants of the saving rate of the private sector of Slovakia. Economic, financial and demographic variables influence savings. Growth of income per capita, private disposable income, elderly dependency ratio, real interest rate and inflation have a positive impact on savings, while increases in public savings indicate a crowding out effect. The inflation rate implies precautionary savings, and dependency ratio savings for bequest. There are also implications for governing institutions deciding on the implementation of appropriate fiscal and monetary operations.

  7. Does Daylight Saving Save Energy? A Meta-Analysis

    OpenAIRE

    Havránek, Tomáš; Herman, Dominik; Irsova, Zuzana

    2016-01-01

    The original rationale for adopting daylight saving time (DST) was energy savings. Modern research studies, however, question the magnitude and even direction of the effect of DST on energy consumption. Representing the first meta-analysis in this literature, we collect 162 estimates from 44 studies and find that the mean reported estimate indicates modest energy savings: 0.34% during the days when DST applies. The literature is not affected by publication bias, but the results vary systemati...

  8. ITSSOIN Hypotheses

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Anheier, H.K.; Krlev, G.; Preuss, S.; Mildenberger, G.; Bekkers, R.H.F.P.; Brink Lund, A.

    2014-01-01

    This report brings together findings from the first ITSSOIN project working steps to formulate empirically testable hypotheses on the impact of the third sector and social innovation – in particular regarding the role of the third sector in generating social innovation but also with reference to

  9. Psychological determinants of financial buffer saving : The influence of financial risk tolerance and regulatory focus

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Magendans, J.; Gutteling, Jan M.; Zebel, Sven

    With governments redistributing more responsibilities unto citizens, individuals have an increasing need for financial resources acting as a buffer against life’s setbacks and unexpected expenditures. The purpose of this study was to examine psychological determinants of saving for a financial

  10. Testing hypotheses in order

    OpenAIRE

    Paul R. Rosenbaum

    2008-01-01

    In certain circumstances, one wishes to test one hypothesis only if certain other hypotheses have been rejected. This ordering of hypotheses simplifies the task of controlling the probability of rejecting any true hypothesis. In an example from an observational study, a treated group is shown to be further from both of two control groups than the two control groups are from each other. Copyright 2008, Oxford University Press.

  11. Deposit Insurance and Risk Shifting in a Strong Regulatory Environment

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bartholdy, Jan; Justesen, Lene Gilje

    This study provides empirical evidence on the moral hazard implications of introducing deposit insurance into a strong regulatory environment. Denmark offers a unique setting because commercial banks and savings banks have different ownership structures, but are subject to the same set...... of regulations. The ownership structure in savings banks implies that they have no incentive to increase risk after the implementation of a deposit insurance scheme whereas commercial banks have. Also, at the time of introduction, Denmark had high capital requirements and a strict closure policy. Using...... a difference-in-difference framework we show that commercial banks did not increase their risk compared to savings banks when deposit insurance was introduced. The results also hold for large commercial banks, indicating that the systemic risk did not increase either. Thus for a system with high capital...

  12. Seed dormancy and germination - Emerging mechanisms and new hypotheses

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hiroyuki eNonogaki

    2014-05-01

    Full Text Available Seed dormancy has played a significant role in adaptation and evolution of seed plants. While its biological significance is clear, molecular mechanisms underlying seed dormancy induction, maintenance and alleviation still remain elusive. Intensive efforts have been made to investigate gibberellin and abscisic acid metabolism in seeds, which greatly contributed to the current understanding of seed dormancy mechanisms. Other mechanisms, which might be independent of hormones, or specific to the seed dormancy pathway, are also emerging from genetic analysis of seed dormancy mutants. These studies suggest that chromatin remodeling through histone ubiquitination, methylation and acetylation, which could lead to transcription elongation or gene silencing, may play a significant role in seed dormancy regulation. Small interfering RNA and/or long non-coding RNA might be a trigger of epigenetic changes at the seed dormancy or germination loci, such as DELAY OF GERMINATION1. While new mechanisms are emerging from genetic studies of seed dormancy, novel hypotheses are also generated from seed germination study with high throughput gene expression analysis. Recent studies on tissue-specific gene expression in tomato and Arabidopsis seeds, which suggested possible mechanosensing in the regulatory mechanisms, advanced our understanding of embryo-endosperm interaction and have potential to re-draw the traditional hypotheses or integrate them into a comprehensive scheme. The progress in basic seed science will enable knowledge translation, another frontier of research to be expanded for food and fuel production.

  13. Maintenance cost savings - snubber elimination with limit stops

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Monette, P.; Baltus, R.; Cloud, R.L.

    1995-01-01

    ''Active'' snubbers can be replaced with ''passive'' Limit Stops using two separate strategies. One is a straightforward piping re-analysis to optimize the number of dynamics supports and replace remaining snubbers with Limit Stops. A second approach is to take implicit advantage of the margins afforded by the ASME Code Case N-411 damping ratios and simply replace snubbers one-for-one with no re-analysis. Both methods result in major maintenance cost savings and both have been received favorably by the USNRC (United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission). Approaches to maintenance cost reduction using these strategies are discussed in this paper. (Author). 11 refs., 4 figs

  14. Regulatory issues with multiplicity in drug approval: Principles and controversies in a changing landscape.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Benda, Norbert; Brandt, Andreas

    2018-01-01

    Recently, new draft guidelines on multiplicity issues in clinical trials have been issued by European Medicine Agency (EMA) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA), respectively. Multiplicity is an issue in clinical trials, if the probability of a false-positive decision is increased by insufficiently accounting for testing multiple hypotheses. We outline the regulatory principles related to multiplicity issues in confirmatory clinical trials intended to support a marketing authorization application in the EU, describe the reasons for an increasing complexity regarding multiple hypotheses testing and discuss the specific multiplicity issues emerging within the regulatory context and being relevant for drug approval.

  15. The future of utility customer-funded energy efficiency programs in the USA. Projected spending and savings to 2025

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Barbose, G.L.; Goldman, C.A.; Hoffman, I.M.; Billingsley, M. [Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, One Cyclotron Road, MS 90R4000, Berkeley, CA 94720-8136 (United States)

    2013-08-15

    We develop projections of future spending on, and savings from, energy efficiency programs funded by electric and gas utility customers in the USA, under three scenarios through 2025. Our analysis, which updates a previous LBNL study, relies on detailed bottom-up modeling of current state energy efficiency policies, regulatory decisions, and demand-side management and utility resource plans. The three scenarios are intended to represent a range of potential outcomes under the current policy environment (i.e., without considering possible major new policy developments). Key findings from the analysis are as follows: (1) By 2025, spending on electric and gas efficiency programs (excluding load management programs) is projected to double from 2010 levels to USD 9.5 billion in the medium case, compared to USD 15.6 billion in the high case and USD 6.5 billion in the low case; (2) Compliance with statewide legislative or regulatory savings or spending targets is the primary driver for the increase in electric program spending through 2025, though a significant share of the increase is also driven by utility DSM planning activity and integrated resource planning; (3) Our analysis suggests that electric efficiency program spending may approach a more even geographic distribution over time in terms of absolute dollars spent, with the Northeastern and Western states declining from over 70 % of total USA spending in 2010 to slightly more than 50 % in 2025, and the South and Midwest splitting the remainder roughly evenly; (4) Under our medium case scenario, annual incremental savings from customer-funded electric energy efficiency programs increase from 18.4 TWh in 2010 in the USA (which is about 0.5 % of electric utility retail sales) to 28.8 TWh in 2025 (0.8 % of retail sales); (5) These savings would offset the majority of load growth in the Energy Information Administration's most recent reference case forecast, given specific assumptions about the extent to which future

  16. Water Saving for Development

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zacharias, Ierotheos

    2013-04-01

    The project "Water Saving for Development (WaS4D)" is financed by European Territorial Cooperational Programme, Greece-Italy 2007-2013, and aims at developing issues on water saving related to improvement of individual behaviors and implementing innovative actions and facilities in order to harmonize policies and start concrete actions for a sustainable water management, making also people and stakeholders awake to water as a vital resource, strategic for quality of life and territory competitiveness. Drinkable water saving culture & behavior, limited water resources, water supply optimization, water resources and demand management, water e-service & educational e-tools are the key words of WaS4D. In this frame the project objectives are: • Definition of water need for domestic and other than domestic purposes: regional and territorial hydro-balance; • promotion of locally available resources not currently being used - water recycling or reuse and rainwater harvesting; • scientific data implementation into Informative Territorial System and publication of geo-referred maps into the institutional web sites, to share information for water protection; • participated review of the regulatory framework for the promotion of water-efficient devices and practices by means of the definition of Action Plans, with defined targets up to brief (2015) and medium (2020) term; • building up water e-services, front-office for all the water issues in building agricultural, industrial and touristic sectors, to share information, procedures and instruments for the water management; • creation and publication of a user friendly software, a game, to promote sustainability for houses also addressed to young people; • creation of water info point into physical spaces called "Water House" to promote education, training, events and new advisory services to assist professionals involved in water uses and consumers; • implementation of participatory approach & networking for a

  17. Saving can save from death anxiety: mortality salience and financial decision-making.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zaleskiewicz, Tomasz; Gasiorowska, Agata; Kesebir, Pelin

    2013-01-01

    Four studies tested the idea that saving money can buffer death anxiety and constitute a more effective buffer than spending money. Saving can relieve future-related anxiety and provide people with a sense of control over their fate, thereby rendering death thoughts less threatening. Study 1 found that participants primed with both saving and spending reported lower death fear than controls. Saving primes, however, were associated with significantly lower death fear than spending primes. Study 2 demonstrated that mortality primes increase the attractiveness of more frugal behaviors in save-or-spend dilemmas. Studies 3 and 4 found, in two different cultures (Polish and American), that the activation of death thoughts prompts people to allocate money to saving as opposed to spending. Overall, these studies provided evidence that saving protects from existential anxiety, and probably more so than spending.

  18. Saving can save from death anxiety: mortality salience and financial decision-making.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tomasz Zaleskiewicz

    Full Text Available Four studies tested the idea that saving money can buffer death anxiety and constitute a more effective buffer than spending money. Saving can relieve future-related anxiety and provide people with a sense of control over their fate, thereby rendering death thoughts less threatening. Study 1 found that participants primed with both saving and spending reported lower death fear than controls. Saving primes, however, were associated with significantly lower death fear than spending primes. Study 2 demonstrated that mortality primes increase the attractiveness of more frugal behaviors in save-or-spend dilemmas. Studies 3 and 4 found, in two different cultures (Polish and American, that the activation of death thoughts prompts people to allocate money to saving as opposed to spending. Overall, these studies provided evidence that saving protects from existential anxiety, and probably more so than spending.

  19. Effects of a behaviour change intervention for Girl Scouts on child and parent energy-saving behaviours

    Science.gov (United States)

    Boudet, Hilary; Ardoin, Nicole M.; Flora, June; Armel, K. Carrie; Desai, Manisha; Robinson, Thomas N.

    2016-08-01

    Energy education programmes for children are hypothesized to have great potential to save energy. Such interventions are often assumed to impact child and family behaviours. Here, using a cluster-randomized controlled trial with 30 Girl Scout troops in Northern California, we assess the efficacy of two social cognitive theory-based interventions focused on residential and food-and-transportation energy-related behaviours of Girl Scouts and their families. We show that Girl Scouts and parents in troops randomly assigned to the residential energy intervention significantly increased their self-reported residential energy-saving behaviours immediately following the intervention and after more than seven months of follow-up, compared with controls. Girl Scouts in troops randomly assigned to the food-and-transportation energy intervention significantly increased their self-reported food-and-transportation energy-saving behaviours immediately following the intervention, compared with controls, but not at follow-up. The results demonstrate that theory-based, child-focused energy interventions have the potential to increase energy-saving behaviours among both children and their parents.

  20. Energy Savings Lifetimes and Persistence

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Hoffman, Ian M. [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Schiller, Steven R. [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Todd, Annika [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Billingsley, Megan A. [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Goldman, Charles A. [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Schwartz, Lisa C. [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

    2016-02-01

    This technical brief explains the concepts of energy savings lifetimes and savings persistence and discusses how program administrators use these factors to calculate savings for efficiency measures, programs and portfolios. Savings lifetime is the length of time that one or more energy efficiency measures or activities save energy, and savings persistence is the change in savings throughout the functional life of a given efficiency measure or activity. Savings lifetimes are essential for assessing the lifecycle benefits and cost effectiveness of efficiency activities and for forecasting loads in resource planning. The brief also provides estimates of savings lifetimes derived from a national collection of costs and savings for electric efficiency programs and portfolios.

  1. The Future of Utility Customer-Funded Energy Efficiency Programs in the United States: Projected Spending and Savings to 2025

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Barbose, Galen [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Goldman, Charles [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Hoffman, Ian [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Billingsley, Megan [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

    2012-09-11

    We develop projections of future spending on, and savings from, energy efficiency programs funded by electric and gas utility customers in the United States, under three scenarios through 2025. Our analysis, which updates a previous LBNL study, relies on detailed bottom-up modeling of current state energy efficiency policies, regulatory decisions, and demand-side management and utility resource plans. The three scenarios are intended to represent a range of potential outcomes under the current policy environment (i.e., without considering possible major new policy developments). By 2025, spending on electric and gas efficiency programs (excluding load management programs) is projected to double from 2010 levels to $9.5 billion in the medium case, compared to $15.6 billion in the high case and $6.5 billion in the low case. Compliance with statewide legislative or regulatory savings or spending targets is the primary driver for the increase in electric program spending through 2025, though a significant share of the increase is also driven by utility DSM planning activity and integrated resource planning. Our analysis suggests that electric efficiency program spending may approach a more even geographic distribution over time in terms of absolute dollars spent, with the Northeastern and Western states declining from over 70% of total U.S. spending in 2010 to slightly more than 50% in 2025, with the South and Midwest splitting the remainder roughly evenly. Under our medium case scenario, annual incremental savings from customer-funded electric energy efficiency programs increase from 18.4 TWh in 2010 in the U.S. (which is about 0.5% of electric utility retail sales) to 28.8 TWh in 2025 (0.8% of retail sales). These savings would offset the majority of load growth in the Energy Information Administration’s most recent reference case forecast, given specific assumptions about the extent to which future energy efficiency program savings are captured in that forecast

  2. Spending to save

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Larsen, Anders

    2013-01-01

    the energy distribution companies meet their overall saving obligation, the net savings impact are about a third of the savings reported by the obligated parties. Further it was found that while energy savings in the public and business sector have a high net impact, some subsidies given under the EEO...... perspective. The evaluation has resulted in noticeable adjustments of the design of the Danish EEO, e.g. introduction of a 1 year payback-time limit for projects receiving subsidies, a minimum baseline for insulation products, and specification of documentation requirements....

  3. Effects of daylight-saving time changes on stock market volatility: a comment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kamstra, Mark J; Kramer, Lisa A; Levi, Maurice D

    2010-12-01

    In a recent article in this journal, Berument, Dogan, and Onar (2010) challenged the existence of the previously documented daylight-saving effect. Kamstra, Kramer, and Levi's original finding (2000) was that average stock market returns on Mondays following time changes are economically and statistically significantly lower than typical Monday returns. Kamstra, et al. hypothesized that the effect may arise due to heightened anxiety or risk aversion on the part of market participants after they experience a 1-hr. disruption in their sleep habits, in accordance with prior findings in the psychology literature linking sleep desynchronosis with anxiety. Berument, et al. replicated the original findings using ordinary least squares estimation, but when they modeled the mean of returns using a method prone to producing biased estimates, they obtained puzzling results. The analysis here, based on standard, unbiased modeling techniques, shows that the daylight-saving effect remains intact in the U.S.

  4. Exploring the time-saving bias: How drivers misestimate time saved when increasing speed

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Eyal Peer

    2010-12-01

    Full Text Available According to the time-saving bias, drivers underestimate the time saved when increasing from a low speed and overestimate the time saved when increasing from a relatively high speed. Previous research used a specific type of task --- drivers were asked to estimate time saved when increasing speed and to give a numeric response --- to show this. The present research conducted two studies with multiple questions to show that the time-saving bias occurs in other tasks. Study 1 found that drivers committed the time-saving bias when asked to estimate (a the time saved when increasing speed or (b the distance that can be completed at a given time when increasing speed or (c the speed required to complete a given distance in decreasing times. Study 2 showed no major differences in estimations of time saved compared to estimations of the remaining journey time and also between responses given on a numeric scale versus a visual analog scale. Study 3 tested two possible explanations for the time-saving bias: a Proportion heuristic and a Differences heuristic. Some evidence was found for use of the latter.

  5. Holiday homes - electric power savings; Sommerhuse - elbesparelser her og nu

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Kofoed Esbensen, N -U; Roed Rasmussen, E [Esbensen Raadgivende Ingenioerer A/S, Copenhagen (Denmark); Weldingh, P [Lokalenergi, Viby J. (Denmark); Worm, J; Adams Rasmussen, L [Energitjenesten, Aarhus (Denmark); Reuss, M [Elsparefonden, Copenhagen (Denmark); Ellehauge, K; Kjaergaard, C -J [Ellehauge og Kildemoes, Aarhus (Denmark); Jensen, Ole Michael [Aalborg Univ. SBi, Aalborg (Denmark)

    2010-09-15

    A questionnaire survey among 700 holiday home owners was conducted and followed up by interviews with representatives of typical groups of holiday home owners and a number of key persons representing rental, building, electricity supply, regulatory processing and supply of renewable energy facilities to holiday homes. The results of the questionnaire survey and of former surveys on technical savings potential are included in an easy-to-read catalogue of ideas with directions and recommendations for various groups of holiday home users and players. The recommendations are grouped into eight topics of more or less relevance for the various target groups. (LN)

  6. Review of light water reactor regulatory requirements: Assessment of selected regulatory requirements that may have marginal importance to risk: Postaccident sampling system, Turbine missiles, Combustible gas control, Charcoal filters

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Scott, W.B.; Jamison, J.D.; Stoetzel, G.A.; Tabatabai, A.S.; Vo, T.V.

    1987-05-01

    In a study commissioned by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), Pacific Northwest Laboratory (PNL) evaluated the costs and benefits of modifying regulatory requirements in the areas of the postaccident sampling system, turbine rotor design reviews and inspections, combustible gas control for inerted Boiling Water Reactor (BWR) containments, and impregnated charcoal filters in certain plant ventilation systems. The basic framework for the analyses was that presented in the Regulatory Analysis Guidelines (NUREG/BR-0058) and in the Handbook for Value-Impact Assessment (NUREG/CR-3568). The effects of selected modifications to regulations were evaluated in terms of such factors as public risk and costs to industry and NRC. The results indicate that potential modifications of the regulatory requirements in three of the four areas would have little impact on public risk. In the fourth area, impregnated charcoal filters in building ventilation systems do appear to limit risks to the public and plant staff. Revisions in the severe accident source term assumptions, however, may reduce the theoretical value of charcoal filters. The cost analysis indicated that substantial savings in operating costs may be realized by changing the interval of turbine rotor inspections. Small to moderate operating cost savings may be realized through postulated modifications to the postaccident sampling system requirements and to the requirements for combustible gas control in inerted BWR containments. Finally, the use of impregnated charcoal filters in ventilation systems appears to be the most cost-effective method of reducing radioiodine concentrations

  7. Energy saving certificates

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2005-11-01

    The French ministry of economy, finances and industry and the French agency of environment and energy mastery (Ademe) have organized on November 8, 2005, a colloquium for the presentation of the energy saving certificates, a new tool to oblige the energy suppliers to encourage their clients to make energy savings. This document gathers the transparencies presented at this colloquium about the following topics: state-of-the-art and presentation of the energy saving certificates system: presentation of the EEC system, presentation of the EEC standard operations; the energy saving certificates in Europe today: energy efficiency commitment in UK, Italian white certificate scheme, perspectives of the different European systems. (J.S.)

  8. Transcriptional regulatory programs underlying barley germination and regulatory functions of Gibberellin and abscisic acid

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-01-01

    germination. Those genes and metabolic pathways are likely to be important parts of transcriptional regulatory networks underlying GA and ABA regulation of seed germination and seedling growth. Conclusions The studies developed a model depicting transcriptional regulatory programs underlying barley germination and GA and ABA regulation of germination at gene, pathway and systems levels, and established a standard transcriptome reference for further integration with various -omics and biological data to illustrate biological networks underlying seed germination. The studies also generated a great amount of systems biological evidence for previously proposed hypotheses, and developed a number of new hypotheses on transcriptional regulation of seed germination for further experimental validation. PMID:21668981

  9. Transcriptional regulatory programs underlying barley germination and regulatory functions of Gibberellin and abscisic acid

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lin Li

    2011-06-01

    -regulated by both GA and seed germination. Those genes and metabolic pathways are likely to be important parts of transcriptional regulatory networks underlying GA and ABA regulation of seed germination and seedling growth. Conclusions The studies developed a model depicting transcriptional regulatory programs underlying barley germination and GA and ABA regulation of germination at gene, pathway and systems levels, and established a standard transcriptome reference for further integration with various -omics and biological data to illustrate biological networks underlying seed germination. The studies also generated a great amount of systems biological evidence for previously proposed hypotheses, and developed a number of new hypotheses on transcriptional regulation of seed germination for further experimental validation.

  10. REMINDER Saved Leave Scheme (SLS) : Transfer of leave to saved leave accounts

    CERN Multimedia

    HR Division

    2002-01-01

    Under the provisions of the voluntary saved leave scheme (SLS), a maximum total of 10 days'*) annual and compensatory leave (excluding saved leave accumulated in accordance with the provisions of Administrative Circular No. 22B) can be transferred to the saved leave account at the end of the leave year (30 September). We remind you that, since last year, unused leave of all those taking part in the saved leave scheme at the closure of the leave-year accounts is transferred automatically to the saved leave account on that date. Therefore, staff members have no administrative steps to take. In addition, the transfer, which eliminates the risk of omitting to request leave transfers and rules out calculation errors in transfer requests, will be clearly shown in the list of leave transactions that can be consulted in EDH from October 2002 onwards. Furthermore, this automatic leave transfer optimizes staff members' chances of benefiting from a saved leave bonus provided that they are still participants in the schem...

  11. Timing Is everything: quantifying regulatory and market readiness levels for technology transition policy analysis

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Kobos, Peter Holmes [Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States); Malczynski, Leonard A. [Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States); Walker, La Tonya Nicole [Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States); Borns, David James [Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)

    2014-03-01

    People save for retirement throughout their career because it is virtually impossible to save all you’ll need in retirement the year before you retire. Similarly, without installing incremental amounts of clean fossil, renewable or transformative energy technologies throughout the coming decades, a radical and immediate change will be near impossible the year before a policy goal is set to be in place. This notion of steady installation growth over acute installations of technology to meet policy goals is the core topic of discussion for this research. This research operationalizes this notion by developing the theoretical underpinnings of regulatory and market acceptance delays by building upon the common Technology Readiness Level (TRL) framework and offers two new additions to the research community. The new and novel Regulatory Readiness Level (RRL) and Market Readiness Level (MRL) frameworks were developed. These components, collectively called the Technology, Regulatory and Market (TRM) readiness level framework allow one to build new constraints into existing Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) to address research questions such as, ‘To meet our desired technical and policy goals, what are the factors that affect the rate we must install technology to achieve these goals in the coming decades?’

  12. Measuring industrial energy savings

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kelly Kissock, J.; Eger, Carl

    2008-01-01

    Accurate measurement of energy savings from industrial energy efficiency projects can reduce uncertainty about the efficacy of the projects, guide the selection of future projects, improve future estimates of expected savings, promote financing of energy efficiency projects through shared-savings agreements, and improve utilization of capital resources. Many efforts to measure industrial energy savings, or simply track progress toward efficiency goals, have had difficulty incorporating changing weather and production, which are frequently major drivers of plant energy use. This paper presents a general method for measuring plant-wide industrial energy savings that takes into account changing weather and production between the pre and post-retrofit periods. In addition, the method can disaggregate savings into components, which provides additional resolution for understanding the effectiveness of individual projects when several projects are implemented together. The method uses multivariable piece-wise regression models to characterize baseline energy use, and disaggregates savings by taking the total derivative of the energy use equation. Although the method incorporates search techniques, multi-variable least-squares regression and calculus, it is easily implemented using data analysis software, and can use readily available temperature, production and utility billing data. This is important, since more complicated methods may be too complex for widespread use. The method is demonstrated using case studies of actual energy assessments. The case studies demonstrate the importance of adjusting for weather and production between the pre- and post-retrofit periods, how plant-wide savings can be disaggregated to evaluate the effectiveness of individual retrofits, how the method can identify the time-dependence of savings, and limitations of engineering models when used to estimate future savings

  13. 76 FR 16477 - General Reporting and Recordkeeping by Savings Associations and Savings and Loan Holding Companies

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-03-23

    ... Savings Associations and Savings and Loan Holding Companies AGENCY: Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS...), 12 CFR 562.4 (audit of savings association, savings and loan holding company, or affiliate), 12 CFR... the savings association), 12 CFR 584.1(f) (books and records of each savings and loan holding company...

  14. Challenges in orphan drug development and regulatory policy in China.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cheng, Alice; Xie, Zhi

    2017-01-18

    While regulatory policy is well defined for orphan drug development in the United States and Europe, rare disease policy in China is still evolving. Many Chinese patients currently pay out of pocket for international treatments that are not yet approved in China. The lack of a clear definition and therefore regulatory approval process for rare diseases has, until now, de-incentivized pharmaceutical companies to pursue rare disease drug development in China. In turn, many grassroots movements have begun to support rare disease patients and facilitate drug discovery through research. Recently, the Chinese FDA set new regulatory guidelines for drugs being developed in China, including an expedited review process for life-saving treatments. In this review, we discuss the effects of these new policy changes on and suggest potential solutions to innovate orphan drug development in China.

  15. Advertising energy saving programs: The potential environmental cost of emphasizing monetary savings.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schwartz, Daniel; Bruine de Bruin, Wändi; Fischhoff, Baruch; Lave, Lester

    2015-06-01

    Many consumers have monetary or environmental motivations for saving energy. Indeed, saving energy produces both monetary benefits, by reducing energy bills, and environmental benefits, by reducing carbon footprints. We examined how consumers' willingness and reasons to enroll in energy-savings programs are affected by whether advertisements emphasize monetary benefits, environmental benefits, or both. From a normative perspective, having 2 noteworthy kinds of benefit should not decrease a program's attractiveness. In contrast, psychological research suggests that adding external incentives to an intrinsically motivating task may backfire. To date, however, it remains unclear whether this is the case when both extrinsic and intrinsic motivations are inherent to the task, as with energy savings, and whether removing explicit mention of extrinsic motivation will reduce its importance. We found that emphasizing a program's monetary benefits reduced participants' willingness to enroll. In addition, participants' explanations about enrollment revealed less attention to environmental concerns when programs emphasized monetary savings, even when environmental savings were also emphasized. We found equal attention to monetary motivations in all conditions, revealing an asymmetric attention to monetary and environmental motives. These results also provide practical guidance regarding the positioning of energy-saving programs: emphasize intrinsic benefits; the extrinsic ones may speak for themselves. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

  16. Everything to be known about the tax credit for energy saving expenses

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Anon.

    2006-01-01

    Tax credits for energy saving have become a commercial argument for the energy professionals. However, this argument is more often superior to the technical demonstration. If its principle is simple, its implementation requires a careful reading of legislative texts. An additional instruction from the French ministry of budget has been necessary to comment and precise some regulatory dispositions of the French tax code. This paper presents some important excerpts of the instruction from May 18, 2006 about some specific space heating appliances, in particular those using a renewable energy source. (J.S.)

  17. Boolean Dynamic Modeling Approaches to Study Plant Gene Regulatory Networks: Integration, Validation, and Prediction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Velderraín, José Dávila; Martínez-García, Juan Carlos; Álvarez-Buylla, Elena R

    2017-01-01

    Mathematical models based on dynamical systems theory are well-suited tools for the integration of available molecular experimental data into coherent frameworks in order to propose hypotheses about the cooperative regulatory mechanisms driving developmental processes. Computational analysis of the proposed models using well-established methods enables testing the hypotheses by contrasting predictions with observations. Within such framework, Boolean gene regulatory network dynamical models have been extensively used in modeling plant development. Boolean models are simple and intuitively appealing, ideal tools for collaborative efforts between theorists and experimentalists. In this chapter we present protocols used in our group for the study of diverse plant developmental processes. We focus on conceptual clarity and practical implementation, providing directions to the corresponding technical literature.

  18. 76 FR 31680 - General Reporting and Recordkeeping by Savings Associations and Savings and Loan Holding Companies

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-06-01

    ... Savings Associations and Savings and Loan Holding Companies AGENCY: Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS... Savings and Loan Holding Companies. OMB Number: 1550-0011. Form Number: N/A. Description: This information...), 12 CFR 562.4 (audit of savings association, savings and loan holding company, or affiliate), 12 CFR...

  19. 12 CFR 583.21 - Savings association.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... AFFECTING SAVINGS AND LOAN HOLDING COMPANIES § 583.21 Savings association. The term savings association means a Federal savings and loan association or a Federal savings bank chartered under section 5 of the Home Owners' Loan Act, a building and loan, savings and loan or homestead association or a cooperative...

  20. Regulatory Roles for Long ncRNA and mRNA

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Karapetyan, Armen R.; Buiting, Coen; Kuiper, Renske A.; Coolen, Marcel W.

    2013-01-01

    Recent advances in high-throughput sequencing technology have identified the transcription of a much larger portion of the genome than previously anticipated. Especially in the context of cancer it has become clear that aberrant transcription of both protein-coding and long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are frequent events. The current dogma of RNA function describes mRNA to be responsible for the synthesis of proteins, whereas non-coding RNA can have regulatory or epigenetic functions. However, this distinction between protein coding and regulatory ability of transcripts may not be that strict. Here, we review the increasing body of evidence for the existence of multifunctional RNAs that have both protein-coding and trans-regulatory roles. Moreover, we demonstrate that coding transcripts bind to components of the Polycomb Repressor Complex 2 (PRC2) with similar affinities as non-coding transcripts, revealing potential epigenetic regulation by mRNAs. We hypothesize that studies on the regulatory ability of disease-associated mRNAs will form an important new field of research

  1. Regulatory Roles for Long ncRNA and mRNA

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Karapetyan, Armen R.; Buiting, Coen; Kuiper, Renske A.; Coolen, Marcel W., E-mail: M.Coolen@gen.umcn.nl [Department of Human Genetics, Nijmegen Centre for Molecular Life Sciences (NCMLS), Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, P.O. Box 9101, Nijmegen 6500 HB (Netherlands)

    2013-04-26

    Recent advances in high-throughput sequencing technology have identified the transcription of a much larger portion of the genome than previously anticipated. Especially in the context of cancer it has become clear that aberrant transcription of both protein-coding and long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are frequent events. The current dogma of RNA function describes mRNA to be responsible for the synthesis of proteins, whereas non-coding RNA can have regulatory or epigenetic functions. However, this distinction between protein coding and regulatory ability of transcripts may not be that strict. Here, we review the increasing body of evidence for the existence of multifunctional RNAs that have both protein-coding and trans-regulatory roles. Moreover, we demonstrate that coding transcripts bind to components of the Polycomb Repressor Complex 2 (PRC2) with similar affinities as non-coding transcripts, revealing potential epigenetic regulation by mRNAs. We hypothesize that studies on the regulatory ability of disease-associated mRNAs will form an important new field of research.

  2. "Letting myself go forward past wrongs": How regulatory modes affect self-forgiveness.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pierro, Antonio; Pica, Gennaro; Giannini, Anna Maria; Higgins, E Tory; Kruglanski, Arie W

    2018-01-01

    The present research addresses the question of whether regulatory-mode orientations affect self-forgiveness. We expected that people with a strong locomotion orientation would be more inclined to self-forgiveness because of their tendencies toward movement and change, which focus them on the future, whereas people with a strong assessment orientation would refrain from self-forgiveness due to their evaluative tendencies which focus them on the past. These hypotheses were supported by the results in four studies that tested the relation between regulatory modes and self-forgiveness by measuring (Studies 1, 3 and 4) and manipulating (Study 2) regulatory-mode-orientations. Finally, in Study 4 we examined more closely our hypothesis that the relation between self-forgiveness and regulatory modes is mediated by past and future temporal foci. The implications of the results for regulatory mode theory are also discussed.

  3. Cancer risks near nuclear facilities: the importance of research design and explicit study hypotheses.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wing, Steve; Richardson, David B; Hoffmann, Wolfgang

    2011-04-01

    In April 2010, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission asked the National Academy of Sciences to update a 1990 study of cancer risks near nuclear facilities. Prior research on this topic has suffered from problems in hypothesis formulation and research design. We review epidemiologic principles used in studies of generic exposure-response associations and in studies of specific sources of exposure. We then describe logical problems with assumptions, formation of testable hypotheses, and interpretation of evidence in previous research on cancer risks near nuclear facilities. Advancement of knowledge about cancer risks near nuclear facilities depends on testing specific hypotheses grounded in physical and biological mechanisms of exposure and susceptibility while considering sample size and ability to adequately quantify exposure, ascertain cancer cases, and evaluate plausible confounders. Next steps in advancing knowledge about cancer risks near nuclear facilities require studies of childhood cancer incidence, focus on in utero and early childhood exposures, use of specific geographic information, and consideration of pathways for transport and uptake of radionuclides. Studies of cancer mortality among adults, cancers with long latencies, large geographic zones, and populations that reside at large distances from nuclear facilities are better suited for public relations than for scientific purposes.

  4. Geology of Woman Saving Concept

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shayesteh Madani

    2014-09-01

    Full Text Available Money is lubricant and an instrument for economic transaction. Money social dimension has increased over time, transforming it from a sole economic instrument to a device for various transactions. Money economic value in society is indicated through different forms, one of which is saving, in the sense of money accumulation and its use under specific future circumstances. Women, who form half of the society, take specific approaches to money and savings. The current research aims to investigate the perspectives and changing attitude strategy to money and saving among married women. The participants of this study include 20 to 70 year-old employed household married women who were observed phenomenologically and interviewed qualitatively on saving through.   The findings of this study demonstrated women perspectives on various types of saving, ways of saving, transfer methods, saving consumption forms and their mechanism. It also revealed that while money is an economic instrument and possess the economic material; attitudes and acts related to money are influenced by social conditions that has consequently turned saving into a social phenomenon.

  5. Determining the Cost-Savings Threshold and Alignment Accuracy of Patient-Specific Instrumentation in Total Ankle Replacements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hamid, Kamran S; Matson, Andrew P; Nwachukwu, Benedict U; Scott, Daniel J; Mather, Richard C; DeOrio, James K

    2017-01-01

    Traditional intraoperative referencing for total ankle replacements (TARs) involves multiple steps and fluoroscopic guidance to determine mechanical alignment. Recent adoption of patient-specific instrumentation (PSI) allows for referencing to be determined preoperatively, resulting in less steps and potentially decreased operative time. We hypothesized that usage of PSI would result in decreased operating room time that would offset the additional cost of PSI compared with standard referencing (SR). In addition, we aimed to compare postoperative radiographic alignment between PSI and SR. Between August 2014 and September 2015, 87 patients undergoing TAR were enrolled in a prospectively collected TAR database. Patients were divided into cohorts based on PSI vs SR, and operative times were reviewed. Radiographic alignment parameters were retrospectively measured at 6 weeks postoperatively. Time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC) was used to derive direct costs. Cost vs operative time-savings were examined via 2-way sensitivity analysis to determine cost-saving thresholds for PSI applicable to a range of institution types. Cost-saving thresholds defined the price of PSI below which PSI would be cost-saving. A total of 35 PSI and 52 SR cases were evaluated with no significant differences identified in patient characteristics. Operative time from incision to completion of casting in cases without adjunct procedures was 127 minutes with PSI and 161 minutes with SR ( P cost-savings threshold range at our institution of $863 below which PSI pricing would provide net cost-savings. Two-way sensitivity analysis generated a globally applicable cost-savings threshold model based on institution-specific costs and surgeon-specific time-savings. This study demonstrated equivalent postoperative TAR alignment with PSI and SR referencing systems but with a significant decrease in operative time with PSI. Based on TDABC and associated sensitivity analysis, a cost-savings threshold

  6. Save Energy: Save Money!

    Science.gov (United States)

    Eccli, Eugene; And Others

    This publication is a collection of inexpensive energy saving tips and home improvements for home owners, particularly in low-income areas or in older homes. Section titles are: (1) Keeping Warm; (2) Getting Heat Where You Need It; (3) Using the Sun; (4) Furnaces, Stoves, and Fireplaces; (5) Insulation and Other Energy Needs; (6) Do-It-Yourself…

  7. Contract saving schemes

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Ronald, R.; Smith, S.J.; Elsinga, M.; Eng, O.S.; Fox O'Mahony, L.; Wachter, S.

    2012-01-01

    Contractual saving schemes for housing are institutionalised savings programmes normally linked to rights to loans for home purchase. They are diverse types as they have been developed differently in each national context, but normally fall into categories of open, closed, compulsory, and ‘free

  8. Transcriptional Regulatory Network Analysis of MYB Transcription Factor Family Genes in Rice

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shuchi eSmita

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available MYB transcription factor (TF is one of the largest TF families and regulates defense responses to various stresses, hormone signaling as well as many metabolic and developmental processes in plants. Understanding these regulatory hierarchies of gene expression networks in response to developmental and environmental cues is a major challenge due to the complex interactions between the genetic elements. Correlation analyses are useful to unravel co-regulated gene pairs governing biological process as well as identification of new candidate hub genes in response to these complex processes. High throughput expression profiling data are highly useful for construction of co-expression networks. In the present study, we utilized transcriptome data for comprehensive regulatory network studies of MYB TFs by top down and guide gene approaches. More than 50% of OsMYBs were strongly correlated under fifty experimental conditions with 51 hub genes via top down approach. Further, clusters were identified using Markov Clustering (MCL. To maximize the clustering performance, parameter evaluation of the MCL inflation score (I was performed in terms of enriched GO categories by measuring F-score. Comparison of co-expressed cluster and clads analyzed from phylogenetic analysis signifies their evolutionarily conserved co-regulatory role. We utilized compendium of known interaction and biological role with Gene Ontology enrichment analysis to hypothesize function of coexpressed OsMYBs. In the other part, the transcriptional regulatory network analysis by guide gene approach revealed 40 putative targets of 26 OsMYB TF hubs with high correlation value utilizing 815 microarray data. The putative targets with MYB-binding cis-elements enrichment in their promoter region, functional co-occurrence as well as nuclear localization supports our finding. Specially, enrichment of MYB binding regions involved in drought-inducibility implying their regulatory role in drought

  9. REMINDER: Saved Leave Scheme (SLS)

    CERN Multimedia

    2003-01-01

    Transfer of leave to saved leave accounts Under the provisions of the voluntary saved leave scheme (SLS), a maximum total of 10 days'* annual and compensatory leave (excluding saved leave accumulated in accordance with the provisions of Administrative Circular No 22B) can be transferred to the saved leave account at the end of the leave year (30 September). We remind you that unused leave of all those taking part in the saved leave scheme at the closure of the leave year accounts is transferred automatically to the saved leave account on that date. Therefore, staff members have no administrative steps to take. In addition, the transfer, which eliminates the risk of omitting to request leave transfers and rules out calculation errors in transfer requests, will be clearly shown in the list of leave transactions that can be consulted in EDH from October 2003 onwards. Furthermore, this automatic leave transfer optimizes staff members' chances of benefiting from a saved leave bonus provided that they ar...

  10. The costs of the different pathways of electricity production and saving

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Dessus, B.

    2012-01-01

    The author discusses the content and methodology of a report published by the French Court of Audit on the assessment of the costs of the nuclear sector. He briefly recalls the principle adopted by the Court, i.e. the method of the economic current cost which calculates a global MWh cost on the whole operation duration of the selected production tool. The author discusses the application of this method to different electricity production and consumption sectors: ground-based wind energy, the Flamanville EPR, use of low-energy bulbs, air-air heat pumps, a refrigerator. He compares and discusses the results obtained for different electricity production sectors (EPR, ground-based wind energy, and gas combined cycle technology) and their sensitivity to adopted hypotheses. He comments the evolution of the investment cost of nuclear reactors in France, the economic current costs of offshore wind energy and small photovoltaic production. He finally discusses the economic current costs of the different ways of energy saving and their sensitivity to the adopted hypotheses

  11. 77 FR 41864 - Self-Regulatory Organizations; EDGX Exchange, Inc.; Notice of Filing and Immediate Effectiveness...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-07-16

    ... its filing with the Commission, the self-regulatory organization included statements concerning the... Members to route through EDGX first before going to other destinations on the System routing table, and... share in cost savings realized by EDGA when routing orders to other destinations). The concept is also...

  12. 31 CFR 351.47 - May I purchase definitive Series EE savings bonds through a payroll savings plan?

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... savings bonds through a payroll savings plan? 351.47 Section 351.47 Money and Finance: Treasury....47 May I purchase definitive Series EE savings bonds through a payroll savings plan? You may purchase... maintains a payroll savings plan. An authorized issuing agent must issue the bonds. ...

  13. 12 CFR 561.43 - Savings association.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ..., chartered under section 5 of the Act, or a building and loan, savings and loan, or homestead association, or... 12 Banks and Banking 5 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Savings association. 561.43 Section 561.43... AFFECTING ALL SAVINGS ASSOCIATIONS § 561.43 Savings association. The term savings association means a...

  14. Savings Behavior and Satisfaction with Savings: A Comparison of Low- and High-Income Groups.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Davis, Elizabeth P.; Schumm, Walter R.

    1987-01-01

    Data on 1,739 married couples from 13 states were analyzed. Associations between satisfaction with savings and level of savings with measures of motivation to save, motivations to spend, and family resources were found to differ substantially between low- and high-income couples. (Author/CH)

  15. 31 CFR 359.35 - May I purchase definitive Series I savings bonds through a payroll savings plan?

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... savings bonds through a payroll savings plan? 359.35 Section 359.35 Money and Finance: Treasury... May I purchase definitive Series I savings bonds through a payroll savings plan? You may purchase definitive bonds through deductions from your pay if your employer maintains a payroll savings plan. An...

  16. Assessment of energy savings and of side effects associated with consumption cutoffs. Complete report + abridged version

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2016-03-01

    As France has been the first European country to implement a legal and regulatory framework which acknowledges the role of cut-off operators, and promotes their direct participation to markets, this report aims at preparing an evolution of this framework, notably by focusing on the notion of energy saving. It highlights the importance of definitions regarding levels of consumption deferment and of energy saving associated with consumption cutoffs. The report first analyses the context: assessment of energy savings associated with consumption cutoffs, discussion of the existence or absence of a typical profile of consumption deferment, and definition of a consumption deferment rate, importance of these works for cut-off integration into the electric power system. It proposes a presentation of the present status of knowledge on energy savings and side effects, defines the energy saving rate, and discusses the sensitivity of this rate to calculation parameters. The next part presents the method adopted to analyse results obtained during experiments. The obtained results are then discussed by distinguishing those obtained in the industrial sector, in the tertiary sector, and in the residential sector. Economic studies are then reported regarding the impact of a wrong choice for the deferment rate on market mechanism rules, and the impact of an explicit taking of the deferment into account. Appendices contain detailed presentations of some specific aspects of these assessments and studies. An abridged version of the report is then provided

  17. Risk transfer via energy-savings insurance

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Mills, Evan

    2003-01-01

    Among the key barriers to investment in energy efficiency are uncertainties about attaining projected energy savings and potential disputes over stipulated savings. The fields of energy management and risk management are thus intertwined. While many technical methods have emerged to manage performance risks (e.g. building diagnostics and commissioning), financial methods are less developed in the energy management arena than in other segments of the economy. Energy-savings insurance (ESI) - formal insurance of predicted energy savings - transfers and spreads both types of risk over a larger pool of energy efficiency projects and reduces barriers to market entry of smaller energy service firms who lack sufficiently strong balance sheets to self-insure the savings. ESI encourages those implementing energy-saving projects to go beyond standard measures and thereby achieve more significant levels of energy savings. Insurance providers are proponents of improved savings measurement and verification techniques, as well as maintenance, thereby contributing to national energy-saving objectives. If properly applied, ESI can potentially reduce the net cost of energy-saving projects by reducing the interest rates charged by lenders, and by increasing the level of savings through quality control. Governmental agencies have been pioneers in the use of ESI and could continue to play a role

  18. 12 CFR 575.10 - Acquisition and disposition of savings associations, savings and loan holding companies, and...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... associations, savings and loan holding companies, and other corporations by mutual holding companies. 575.10... COMPANIES § 575.10 Acquisition and disposition of savings associations, savings and loan holding companies... savings and loan holding company in the stock form that is not a subsidiary holding company, provided the...

  19. Predictive hypotheses are ineffectual in resolving complex biochemical systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fry, Michael

    2018-03-20

    Scientific hypotheses may either predict particular unknown facts or accommodate previously-known data. Although affirmed predictions are intuitively more rewarding than accommodations of established facts, opinions divide whether predictive hypotheses are also epistemically superior to accommodation hypotheses. This paper examines the contribution of predictive hypotheses to discoveries of several bio-molecular systems. Having all the necessary elements of the system known beforehand, an abstract predictive hypothesis of semiconservative mode of DNA replication was successfully affirmed. However, in defining the genetic code whose biochemical basis was unclear, hypotheses were only partially effective and supplementary experimentation was required for its conclusive definition. Markedly, hypotheses were entirely inept in predicting workings of complex systems that included unknown elements. Thus, hypotheses did not predict the existence and function of mRNA, the multiple unidentified components of the protein biosynthesis machinery, or the manifold unknown constituents of the ubiquitin-proteasome system of protein breakdown. Consequently, because of their inability to envision unknown entities, predictive hypotheses did not contribute to the elucidation of cation theories remained the sole instrument to explain complex bio-molecular systems, the philosophical question of alleged advantage of predictive over accommodative hypotheses became inconsequential.

  20. Entrepreneurial Saving Practices and Reinvestment

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Beck, Thorsten; Pamuk, Haki; Uras, Burak R.

    2017-01-01

    We use a novel enterprise survey to gauge the relationship between saving instruments and entrepreneurial reinvestment. We show that while most informal saving practices are not associated with a lower likelihood of reinvestment when compared with formal saving practices, there is a significantly

  1. Risk transfer via energy savings insurance

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Mills, Evan

    2001-10-01

    Among the key barriers to investment in energy efficiency improvements are uncertainties about attaining projected energy savings and apprehension about potential disputes over these savings. The fields of energy management and risk management are thus intertwined. While many technical methods have emerged to manage performance risks (e.g. building commissioning), financial risk transfer techniques are less developed in the energy management arena than in other more mature segments of the economy. Energy Savings Insurance (ESI) - formal insurance of predicted energy savings - is one method of transferring financial risks away from the facility owner or energy services contractor. ESI offers a number of significant advantages over other forms of financial risk transfer, e.g. savings guarantees or performance bonds. ESI providers manage risk via pre-construction design review as well as post-construction commissioning and measurement and verification of savings. We found that the two mos t common criticisms of ESI - excessive pricing and onerous exclusions - are not born out in practice. In fact, if properly applied, ESI can potentially reduce the net cost of energy savings projects by reducing the interest rates charged by lenders, and by increasing the level of savings through quality control. Debt service can also be ensured by matching loan payments to projected energy savings while designing the insurance mechanism so that payments are made by the insurer in the event of a savings shortfall. We estimate the U.S. ESI market potential of $875 million/year in premium income. From an energy-policy perspective, ESI offers a number of potential benefits: ESI transfers performance risk from the balance sheet of the entity implementing the energy savings project, thereby freeing up capital otherwise needed to ''self-insure'' the savings. ESI reduces barriers to market entry of smaller energy services firms who do not have sufficiently strong balance

  2. Regulatory Roles for Long ncRNA and mRNA

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marcel W. Coolen

    2013-04-01

    Full Text Available Recent advances in high-throughput sequencing technology have identified the transcription of a much larger portion of the genome than previously anticipated. Especially in the context of cancer it has become clear that aberrant transcription of both protein-coding and long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs are frequent events. The current dogma of RNA function describes mRNA to be responsible for the synthesis of proteins, whereas non-coding RNA can have regulatory or epigenetic functions. However, this distinction between protein coding and regulatory ability of transcripts may not be that strict. Here, we review the increasing body of evidence for the existence of multifunctional RNAs that have both protein-coding and trans-regulatory roles. Moreover, we demonstrate that coding transcripts bind to components of the Polycomb Repressor Complex 2 (PRC2 with similar affinities as non-coding transcripts, revealing potential epigenetic regulation by mRNAs. We hypothesize that studies on the regulatory ability of disease-associated mRNAs will form an important new field of research.

  3. Framing of information on the use of public finances, regulatory fit of recipients and tax compliance

    Science.gov (United States)

    Holler, Marianne; Hoelzl, Erik; Kirchler, Erich; Leder, Susanne; Mannetti, Lucia

    2010-01-01

    Information campaigns to increase tax compliance could be framed in different ways. They can either highlight the potential gains when tax compliance is high, or the potential losses when compliance is low. According to regulatory focus theory, such framing should be most effective when it is congruent with the promotion or prevention focus of its recipients. Two studies confirmed the hypothesized interaction effects between recipients' regulatory focus and framing of information campaigns, with tax compliance being highest under conditions of regulatory fit. To address taxpayers effectively, information campaigns by tax authorities should consider the positive and negative framing of information, and the moderating effect of recipients' regulatory focus. PMID:20495689

  4. Framing of information on the use of public finances, regulatory fit of recipients and tax compliance.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Holler, Marianne; Hoelzl, Erik; Kirchler, Erich; Leder, Susanne; Mannetti, Lucia

    2008-08-01

    Information campaigns to increase tax compliance could be framed in different ways. They can either highlight the potential gains when tax compliance is high, or the potential losses when compliance is low. According to regulatory focus theory, such framing should be most effective when it is congruent with the promotion or prevention focus of its recipients. Two studies confirmed the hypothesized interaction effects between recipients' regulatory focus and framing of information campaigns, with tax compliance being highest under conditions of regulatory fit. To address taxpayers effectively, information campaigns by tax authorities should consider the positive and negative framing of information, and the moderating effect of recipients' regulatory focus.

  5. The influence of multiple goals on driving behavior: the case of safety, time saving, and fuel saving.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dogan, Ebru; Steg, Linda; Delhomme, Patricia

    2011-09-01

    Due to the innate complexity of the task drivers have to manage multiple goals while driving and the importance of certain goals may vary over time leading to priority being given to different goals depending on the circumstances. This study aimed to investigate drivers' behavioral regulation while managing multiple goals during driving. To do so participants drove on urban and rural roads in a driving simulator while trying to manage fuel saving and time saving goals, besides the safety goals that are always present during driving. A between-subjects design was used with one group of drivers managing two goals (safety and fuel saving) and another group managing three goals (safety, fuel saving, and time saving) while driving. Participants were provided continuous feedback on the fuel saving goal via a meter on the dashboard. The results indicate that even when a fuel saving or time saving goal is salient, safety goals are still given highest priority when interactions with other road users take place and when interacting with a traffic light. Additionally, performance on the fuel saving goal diminished for the group that had to manage fuel saving and time saving together. The theoretical implications for a goal hierarchy in driving tasks and practical implications for eco-driving are discussed. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  6. Saving-enhanced memory: the benefits of saving on the learning and remembering of new information.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Storm, Benjamin C; Stone, Sean M

    2015-02-01

    With the continued integration of technology into people's lives, saving digital information has become an everyday facet of human behavior. In the present research, we examined the consequences of saving certain information on the ability to learn and remember other information. Results from three experiments showed that saving one file before studying a new file significantly improved memory for the contents of the new file. Notably, this effect was not observed when the saving process was deemed unreliable or when the contents of the to-be-saved file were not substantial enough to interfere with memory for the new file. These results suggest that saving provides a means to strategically off-load memory onto the environment in order to reduce the extent to which currently unneeded to-be-remembered information interferes with the learning and remembering of other information. © The Author(s) 2014.

  7. Regulatory Challenges for Cartilage Repair Technologies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McGowan, Kevin B; Stiegman, Glenn

    2013-01-01

    In the United States, few Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved options exist for the treatment of focal cartilage and osteochondral lesions. Developers of products for cartilage repair face many challenges to obtain marketing approval from the FDA. The objective of this review is to discuss the necessary steps for FDA application and approval for a new cartilage repair product. FDA Guidance Documents, FDA Panel Meetings, scientific organization recommendations, and clinicaltrials.gov were reviewed to demonstrate the current thinking of FDA and the scientific community on the regulatory process for cartilage repair therapies. Cartilage repair therapies can receive market approval from FDA as medical devices, drugs, or biologics, and the specific classification of product can affect the nonclinical, clinical, and regulatory strategy to bring the product to market. Recent FDA guidance gives an outline of the required elements to bring a cartilage repair product to market, although these standards are often very general. As a result, companies have to carefully craft their study patient population, comparator group, and clinical endpoint to best showcase their product's attributes. In addition, regulatory strategy and manufacturing process validation need to be considered early in the clinical study process to allow for timely product approval following the completion of clinical study. Although the path to regulatory approval for a cartilage repair therapy is challenging and time-consuming, proper clinical trial planning and attention to the details can eventually save companies time and money by bringing a product to the market in the most expeditious process possible.

  8. Social Capital and Savings Behavior

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Newman, Carol; Tarp, Finn; Khai, Luu Duc

    In this paper, we analyze household savings in rural Vietnam paying particular attention to the factors that determine the proportion of savings held as formal deposits. Our aim is to explore the extent to which social capital can play a role in promoting formal savings behavior. Social capital...

  9. Saving water through global trade

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Chapagain, Ashok; Hoekstra, Arjen Ysbert; Savenije, H.H.G.

    2005-01-01

    Many nations save domestic water resources by importing water-intensive products and exporting commodities that are less water intensive. National water saving through the import of a product can imply saving water at a global level if the flow is from sites with high to sites with low water

  10. Energy savings in CSFR - building sector

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Jacobsen, F.R.

    1993-01-01

    The Czechoslovak/Danish project on energy savings in buildings proves that it is possible to save up to 30% of the energy in buildings. 10% can be saved at an investment of 27 bill KCS. The total investment that is needed to save 30% is 140 bill KCS. Further energy savings can be obtained through more energy efficient supply systems. Information dissemination is important for the energy saving programme as are economic incentives. Investments in energy savings should be profitable for the investor, but this is not the case in the Czech and Slovak republics today. Changes are needed. Energy prices are still to low, compared to investment costs. Financial possibilities are not satisfactory for private investors. Price systems are not favourable to investment in energy savings. Training is needed for boiler men and energy consultants. Legislation is essential for the support of the full range of activities in the energy sector. Research and Development activities must back up the development of the sector. Pilot projects can illuminate the savings potential. The production of technical equipment for control and metering and production of insulation materials must be promoted. (AB)

  11. Prefrontal recruitment during social rejection predicts greater subsequent self-regulatory imbalance and impairment: neural and longitudinal evidence.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chester, David S; DeWall, C Nathan

    2014-11-01

    Social rejection impairs self-regulation, yet the neural mechanisms underlying this relationship remain unknown. The right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (rVLPFC) facilitates self-regulation and plays a robust role in regulating the distress of social rejection. However, recruiting this region's inhibitory function during social rejection may come at a self-regulatory cost. As supported by prominent theories of self-regulation, we hypothesized that greater rVLPFC recruitment during rejection would predict a subsequent self-regulatory imbalance that favored reflexive impulses (i.e., cravings), which would then impair self-regulation. Supporting our hypotheses, rVLPFC activation during social rejection was associated with greater subsequent nucleus accumbens (NAcc) activation and lesser functional connectivity between the NAcc and rVLPFC to appetitive cues. Over seven days, the effect of daily felt rejection on daily self-regulatory impairment was exacerbated among participants who showed a stronger rVLPFC response to social rejection. This interactive effect was mirrored in the effect of daily felt rejection on heightened daily alcohol cravings. Our findings suggest that social rejection likely impairs self-regulation by recruiting the rVLPFC, which then tips the regulatory balance towards reward-based impulses. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  12. Quantitative linking hypotheses for infant eye movements.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Daniel Yurovsky

    Full Text Available The study of cognitive development hinges, largely, on the analysis of infant looking. But analyses of eye gaze data require the adoption of linking hypotheses: assumptions about the relationship between observed eye movements and underlying cognitive processes. We develop a general framework for constructing, testing, and comparing these hypotheses, and thus for producing new insights into early cognitive development. We first introduce the general framework--applicable to any infant gaze experiment--and then demonstrate its utility by analyzing data from a set of experiments investigating the role of attentional cues in infant learning. The new analysis uncovers significantly more structure in these data, finding evidence of learning that was not found in standard analyses and showing an unexpected relationship between cue use and learning rate. Finally, we discuss general implications for the construction and testing of quantitative linking hypotheses. MATLAB code for sample linking hypotheses can be found on the first author's website.

  13. Pearce element ratios: A paradigm for testing hypotheses

    Science.gov (United States)

    Russell, J. K.; Nicholls, Jim; Stanley, Clifford R.; Pearce, T. H.

    Science moves forward with the development of new ideas that are encapsulated by hypotheses whose aim is to explain the structure of data sets or to expand existing theory. These hypotheses remain conjecture until they have been tested. In fact, Karl Popper advocated that a scientist's job does not finish with the creation of an idea but, rather, begins with the testing of the related hypotheses. In Popper's [1959] advocation it is implicit that there be tools with which we can test our hypotheses. Consequently, the development of rigorous tests for conceptual models plays a major role in maintaining the integrity of scientific endeavor [e.g., Greenwood, 1989].

  14. Energy Savings Measure Packages. Existing Homes

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Casey, Sean [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Booten, Chuck [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

    2011-11-01

    This document presents the most cost effective Energy Savings Measure Packages (ESMP) for existing mixed-fuel and all electric homes to achieve 15% and 30% savings for each BetterBuildings grantee location across the United States. These packages are optimized for minimum cost to homeowners for source energy savings given the local climate and prevalent building characteristics (i.e. foundation types). Maximum cost savings are typically found between 30% and 50% energy savings over the reference home; this typically amounts to $300 - $700/year.

  15. Public Perceptions of Regulatory Costs, Their Uncertainty and Interindividual Distribution.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Johnson, Branden B; Finkel, Adam M

    2016-06-01

    Public perceptions of both risks and regulatory costs shape rational regulatory choices. Despite decades of risk perception studies, this article is the first on regulatory cost perceptions. A survey of 744 U.S. residents probed: (1) How knowledgeable are laypeople about regulatory costs incurred to reduce risks? (2) Do laypeople see official estimates of cost and benefit (lives saved) as accurate? (3) (How) do preferences for hypothetical regulations change when mean-preserving spreads of uncertainty replace certain cost or benefit? and (4) (How) do preferences change when unequal interindividual distributions of hypothetical regulatory costs replace equal distributions? Respondents overestimated costs of regulatory compliance, while assuming agencies underestimate costs. Most assumed agency estimates of benefits are accurate; a third believed both cost and benefit estimates are accurate. Cost and benefit estimates presented without uncertainty were slightly preferred to those surrounded by "narrow uncertainty" (a range of costs or lives entirely within a personally-calibrated zone without clear acceptance or rejection of tradeoffs). Certain estimates were more preferred than "wide uncertainty" (a range of agency estimates extending beyond these personal bounds, thus posing a gamble between favored and unacceptable tradeoffs), particularly for costs as opposed to benefits (but even for costs a quarter of respondents preferred wide uncertainty to certainty). Agency-acknowledged uncertainty in general elicited mixed judgments of honesty and trustworthiness. People preferred egalitarian distributions of regulatory costs, despite skewed actual cost distributions, and preferred progressive cost distributions (the rich pay a greater than proportional share) to regressive ones. Efficient and socially responsive regulations require disclosure of much more information about regulatory costs and risks. © 2016 Society for Risk Analysis.

  16. SAVING BEHAVIOUR AND DETERMINANTS OF SAVING MOBILIZATION BY RURAL FINANCIAL CO-OPERATORS IN TIGRAI REGION, ETHIOPIA

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sebhatu Kifle Tesfamariam

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper identified and examined saving behaviour and determinants of saving mobiliza-tion by the rural co-operators in Southern Tigrai Ethiopia. The input for the study was ob-tained from randomly selected 120 rural household savers from six purposively selected ru-ral savings and credit cooperatives. The result of the study using least squares method showed that savings mobilized is determined by household annual income, amount of loan borrowed and year of member stay in the cooperative. These factors therefore have to be considered in designing strategies aimed at improving the saving mobilization of coopera-tive members in the study area. Besides, economically feasible cooperative societies in the region should be encouraged among the rural households by supporting them with revolv-ing funds as they are more effective and efficient in mobilizing rural savings and provide collateral plus guarantor-based loans with low default rate. This will enable them to boost up their production output and increase their savings thereby stimulating the rural economy.

  17. Connecting possibilistic prudence and optimal saving

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ana María Lucia Casademunt

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available In this paper we study the optimal saving problem in the framework of possibility theory. The notion of possibilistic precautionary saving is introduced as a measure of the way the presence of possibilistic risk (represented by a fuzzy number influences a consumer in establishing the level of optimal saving. The notion of prudence of an agent in the face of possibilistic risk is defined and the equivalence between the prudence condition and a positive possibilistic precautionary saving is proved. Some relations between possibilistic risk aversion, prudence and possibilistic precautionary saving were established.

  18. Differential T cell response against BK virus regulatory and structural antigens: A viral dynamics modelling approach.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Arturo Blazquez-Navarro

    2018-05-01

    Full Text Available BK virus (BKV associated nephropathy affects 1-10% of kidney transplant recipients, leading to graft failure in about 50% of cases. Immune responses against different BKV antigens have been shown to have a prognostic value for disease development. Data currently suggest that the structural antigens and regulatory antigens of BKV might each trigger a different mode of action of the immune response. To study the influence of different modes of action of the cellular immune response on BKV clearance dynamics, we have analysed the kinetics of BKV plasma load and anti-BKV T cell response (Elispot in six patients with BKV associated nephropathy using ODE modelling. The results show that only a small number of hypotheses on the mode of action are compatible with the empirical data. The hypothesis with the highest empirical support is that structural antigens trigger blocking of virus production from infected cells, whereas regulatory antigens trigger an acceleration of death of infected cells. These differential modes of action could be important for our understanding of BKV resolution, as according to the hypothesis, only regulatory antigens would trigger a fast and continuous clearance of the viral load. Other hypotheses showed a lower degree of empirical support, but could potentially explain the clearing mechanisms of individual patients. Our results highlight the heterogeneity of the dynamics, including the delay between immune response against structural versus regulatory antigens, and its relevance for BKV clearance. Our modelling approach is the first that studies the process of BKV clearance by bringing together viral and immune kinetics and can provide a framework for personalised hypotheses generation on the interrelations between cellular immunity and viral dynamics.

  19. Differential T cell response against BK virus regulatory and structural antigens: A viral dynamics modelling approach.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Blazquez-Navarro, Arturo; Schachtner, Thomas; Stervbo, Ulrik; Sefrin, Anett; Stein, Maik; Westhoff, Timm H; Reinke, Petra; Klipp, Edda; Babel, Nina; Neumann, Avidan U; Or-Guil, Michal

    2018-05-01

    BK virus (BKV) associated nephropathy affects 1-10% of kidney transplant recipients, leading to graft failure in about 50% of cases. Immune responses against different BKV antigens have been shown to have a prognostic value for disease development. Data currently suggest that the structural antigens and regulatory antigens of BKV might each trigger a different mode of action of the immune response. To study the influence of different modes of action of the cellular immune response on BKV clearance dynamics, we have analysed the kinetics of BKV plasma load and anti-BKV T cell response (Elispot) in six patients with BKV associated nephropathy using ODE modelling. The results show that only a small number of hypotheses on the mode of action are compatible with the empirical data. The hypothesis with the highest empirical support is that structural antigens trigger blocking of virus production from infected cells, whereas regulatory antigens trigger an acceleration of death of infected cells. These differential modes of action could be important for our understanding of BKV resolution, as according to the hypothesis, only regulatory antigens would trigger a fast and continuous clearance of the viral load. Other hypotheses showed a lower degree of empirical support, but could potentially explain the clearing mechanisms of individual patients. Our results highlight the heterogeneity of the dynamics, including the delay between immune response against structural versus regulatory antigens, and its relevance for BKV clearance. Our modelling approach is the first that studies the process of BKV clearance by bringing together viral and immune kinetics and can provide a framework for personalised hypotheses generation on the interrelations between cellular immunity and viral dynamics.

  20. Moonlight project promotes energy-saving technology

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ishihara, A.

    1986-01-01

    In promoting energy saving, development of energy conservation technologies aimed at raising energy efficiency in the fields of energy conversion, its transportation, its storage, and its consumption is considered, along with enactment of legal actions urging rational use of energies and implementation of an enlightenment campaign for energy conservation to play a crucial role. Under the Moonlight Project, technical development is at present being centered around the following six pillars: (1) large scale energy saving technology; (2) pioneering and fundamental energy saving technology; (3) international cooperative research project; (4) research and survey of energy saving technology; (5) energy saving technology development by private industry; and (6) promotion of energy saving through standardization. Heat pumps, magnetohydrodynamic generators and fuel cells are discussed.

  1. Saved Leave Scheme (SLS) : Simplified procedure for the transfer of leave to saved leave accounts

    CERN Multimedia

    HR Division

    2001-01-01

    As part of the process of streamlining procedures, the HR and AS Divisions have jointly developed a system whereby annual and compensatory leave will henceforth be automatically transferred1) to saved leave accounts. Under the provisions of the voluntary saved leave scheme (SLS), a maximum total of 10 days'2) annual and compensatory leave (excluding saved leave accumulated in accordance with the provisions of Administrative Circular No. 22 B) can be transferred to the saved leave account at the end of the leave year (30 September). Previously, every person taking part in the scheme has been individually issued with a form for the purposes of requesting the transfer of leave to the leave account and the transfer has then had to be done manually by HR Division. To streamline the procedure, unused leave of all those taking part in the saved leave scheme at the closure of of the leave-year accounts will henceforth be transferred automatically to the saved leave account on that date. This simplification is in the ...

  2. HyQue: evaluating hypotheses using Semantic Web technologies

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Callahan Alison

    2011-05-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Key to the success of e-Science is the ability to computationally evaluate expert-composed hypotheses for validity against experimental data. Researchers face the challenge of collecting, evaluating and integrating large amounts of diverse information to compose and evaluate a hypothesis. Confronted with rapidly accumulating data, researchers currently do not have the software tools to undertake the required information integration tasks. Results We present HyQue, a Semantic Web tool for querying scientific knowledge bases with the purpose of evaluating user submitted hypotheses. HyQue features a knowledge model to accommodate diverse hypotheses structured as events and represented using Semantic Web languages (RDF/OWL. Hypothesis validity is evaluated against experimental and literature-sourced evidence through a combination of SPARQL queries and evaluation rules. Inference over OWL ontologies (for type specifications, subclass assertions and parthood relations and retrieval of facts stored as Bio2RDF linked data provide support for a given hypothesis. We evaluate hypotheses of varying levels of detail about the genetic network controlling galactose metabolism in Saccharomyces cerevisiae to demonstrate the feasibility of deploying such semantic computing tools over a growing body of structured knowledge in Bio2RDF. Conclusions HyQue is a query-based hypothesis evaluation system that can currently evaluate hypotheses about the galactose metabolism in S. cerevisiae. Hypotheses as well as the supporting or refuting data are represented in RDF and directly linked to one another allowing scientists to browse from data to hypothesis and vice versa. HyQue hypotheses and data are available at http://semanticscience.org/projects/hyque.

  3. HyQue: evaluating hypotheses using Semantic Web technologies

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-01-01

    Background Key to the success of e-Science is the ability to computationally evaluate expert-composed hypotheses for validity against experimental data. Researchers face the challenge of collecting, evaluating and integrating large amounts of diverse information to compose and evaluate a hypothesis. Confronted with rapidly accumulating data, researchers currently do not have the software tools to undertake the required information integration tasks. Results We present HyQue, a Semantic Web tool for querying scientific knowledge bases with the purpose of evaluating user submitted hypotheses. HyQue features a knowledge model to accommodate diverse hypotheses structured as events and represented using Semantic Web languages (RDF/OWL). Hypothesis validity is evaluated against experimental and literature-sourced evidence through a combination of SPARQL queries and evaluation rules. Inference over OWL ontologies (for type specifications, subclass assertions and parthood relations) and retrieval of facts stored as Bio2RDF linked data provide support for a given hypothesis. We evaluate hypotheses of varying levels of detail about the genetic network controlling galactose metabolism in Saccharomyces cerevisiae to demonstrate the feasibility of deploying such semantic computing tools over a growing body of structured knowledge in Bio2RDF. Conclusions HyQue is a query-based hypothesis evaluation system that can currently evaluate hypotheses about the galactose metabolism in S. cerevisiae. Hypotheses as well as the supporting or refuting data are represented in RDF and directly linked to one another allowing scientists to browse from data to hypothesis and vice versa. HyQue hypotheses and data are available at http://semanticscience.org/projects/hyque. PMID:21624158

  4. HyQue: evaluating hypotheses using Semantic Web technologies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Callahan, Alison; Dumontier, Michel; Shah, Nigam H

    2011-05-17

    Key to the success of e-Science is the ability to computationally evaluate expert-composed hypotheses for validity against experimental data. Researchers face the challenge of collecting, evaluating and integrating large amounts of diverse information to compose and evaluate a hypothesis. Confronted with rapidly accumulating data, researchers currently do not have the software tools to undertake the required information integration tasks. We present HyQue, a Semantic Web tool for querying scientific knowledge bases with the purpose of evaluating user submitted hypotheses. HyQue features a knowledge model to accommodate diverse hypotheses structured as events and represented using Semantic Web languages (RDF/OWL). Hypothesis validity is evaluated against experimental and literature-sourced evidence through a combination of SPARQL queries and evaluation rules. Inference over OWL ontologies (for type specifications, subclass assertions and parthood relations) and retrieval of facts stored as Bio2RDF linked data provide support for a given hypothesis. We evaluate hypotheses of varying levels of detail about the genetic network controlling galactose metabolism in Saccharomyces cerevisiae to demonstrate the feasibility of deploying such semantic computing tools over a growing body of structured knowledge in Bio2RDF. HyQue is a query-based hypothesis evaluation system that can currently evaluate hypotheses about the galactose metabolism in S. cerevisiae. Hypotheses as well as the supporting or refuting data are represented in RDF and directly linked to one another allowing scientists to browse from data to hypothesis and vice versa. HyQue hypotheses and data are available at http://semanticscience.org/projects/hyque.

  5. Identifying noncoding risk variants using disease-relevant gene regulatory networks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gao, Long; Uzun, Yasin; Gao, Peng; He, Bing; Ma, Xiaoke; Wang, Jiahui; Han, Shizhong; Tan, Kai

    2018-02-16

    Identifying noncoding risk variants remains a challenging task. Because noncoding variants exert their effects in the context of a gene regulatory network (GRN), we hypothesize that explicit use of disease-relevant GRNs can significantly improve the inference accuracy of noncoding risk variants. We describe Annotation of Regulatory Variants using Integrated Networks (ARVIN), a general computational framework for predicting causal noncoding variants. It employs a set of novel regulatory network-based features, combined with sequence-based features to infer noncoding risk variants. Using known causal variants in gene promoters and enhancers in a number of diseases, we show ARVIN outperforms state-of-the-art methods that use sequence-based features alone. Additional experimental validation using reporter assay further demonstrates the accuracy of ARVIN. Application of ARVIN to seven autoimmune diseases provides a holistic view of the gene subnetwork perturbed by the combinatorial action of the entire set of risk noncoding mutations.

  6. Reinforcement Learning and Savings Behavior.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Choi, James J; Laibson, David; Madrian, Brigitte C; Metrick, Andrew

    2009-12-01

    We show that individual investors over-extrapolate from their personal experience when making savings decisions. Investors who experience particularly rewarding outcomes from saving in their 401(k)-a high average and/or low variance return-increase their 401(k) savings rate more than investors who have less rewarding experiences with saving. This finding is not driven by aggregate time-series shocks, income effects, rational learning about investing skill, investor fixed effects, or time-varying investor-level heterogeneity that is correlated with portfolio allocations to stock, bond, and cash asset classes. We discuss implications for the equity premium puzzle and interventions aimed at improving household financial outcomes.

  7. Reinforcement Learning and Savings Behavior*

    Science.gov (United States)

    Choi, James J.; Laibson, David; Madrian, Brigitte C.; Metrick, Andrew

    2009-01-01

    We show that individual investors over-extrapolate from their personal experience when making savings decisions. Investors who experience particularly rewarding outcomes from saving in their 401(k)—a high average and/or low variance return—increase their 401(k) savings rate more than investors who have less rewarding experiences with saving. This finding is not driven by aggregate time-series shocks, income effects, rational learning about investing skill, investor fixed effects, or time-varying investor-level heterogeneity that is correlated with portfolio allocations to stock, bond, and cash asset classes. We discuss implications for the equity premium puzzle and interventions aimed at improving household financial outcomes. PMID:20352013

  8. New families of human regulatory RNA structures identified by comparative analysis of vertebrate genomes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Parker, Brian J; Moltke, Ida; Roth, Adam; Washietl, Stefan; Wen, Jiayu; Kellis, Manolis; Breaker, Ronald; Pedersen, Jakob Skou

    2011-11-01

    Regulatory RNA structures are often members of families with multiple paralogous instances across the genome. Family members share functional and structural properties, which allow them to be studied as a whole, facilitating both bioinformatic and experimental characterization. We have developed a comparative method, EvoFam, for genome-wide identification of families of regulatory RNA structures, based on primary sequence and secondary structure similarity. We apply EvoFam to a 41-way genomic vertebrate alignment. Genome-wide, we identify 220 human, high-confidence families outside protein-coding regions comprising 725 individual structures, including 48 families with known structural RNA elements. Known families identified include both noncoding RNAs, e.g., miRNAs and the recently identified MALAT1/MEN β lincRNA family; and cis-regulatory structures, e.g., iron-responsive elements. We also identify tens of new families supported by strong evolutionary evidence and other statistical evidence, such as GO term enrichments. For some of these, detailed analysis has led to the formulation of specific functional hypotheses. Examples include two hypothesized auto-regulatory feedback mechanisms: one involving six long hairpins in the 3'-UTR of MAT2A, a key metabolic gene that produces the primary human methyl donor S-adenosylmethionine; the other involving a tRNA-like structure in the intron of the tRNA maturation gene POP1. We experimentally validate the predicted MAT2A structures. Finally, we identify potential new regulatory networks, including large families of short hairpins enriched in immunity-related genes, e.g., TNF, FOS, and CTLA4, which include known transcript destabilizing elements. Our findings exemplify the diversity of post-transcriptional regulation and provide a resource for further characterization of new regulatory mechanisms and families of noncoding RNAs.

  9. Electric energy savings from new technologies

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Moe, R.J.; Harrer, B.J.; Kellogg, M.A.; Lyke, A.J.; Imhoff, K.L.; Fisher, Z.J.

    1986-01-01

    Purpose of the report is to provide information about the electricity-saving potential of new technologies to OCEP that it can use in developing alternative long-term projections of US electricity consumption. Low-, base-, and high-case scenarios of the electricity savings for ten technologies were prepared. The total projected annual savings for the year 2000 for all ten technologies were 137 billion kilowatt hours (BkWh), 279 BkWh, and 470 BkWh, respectively, for the three cases. The magnitude of these savings projections can be gauged by comparing them to the Department's reference case projection for the 1985 National Energy Policy Plan. In the Department's reference case, total consumption in 2000 is projected to be 3319 BkWh. Thus, the savings projected here represent between 4% and 14% of total consumption projected for 2000. Because approximately 75% of the base-case estimate of savings are already incorporated into the reference forecast, reducing projected electricity consumption from what it otherwise would have been, the savings estimated here should not be directly subtracted from the reference forecast.

  10. Saving for Success: Financial Education and Savings Goal Achievement in Individual Development Accounts

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grinstead, Mary L.; Mauldin, Teresa; Sabia, Joseph J.; Koonce, Joan; Palmer, Lance

    2011-01-01

    Using microdata from the American Dream Demonstration, the current study examines factors associated with savings and savings goal achievement (indicated by a matched withdrawal) among participants of individual development account (IDA) programs. Multinomial logit results show that hours of participation in financial education programs, higher…

  11. Short-Term Saved Leave Scheme

    CERN Multimedia

    2007-01-01

    As announced at the meeting of the Standing Concertation Committee (SCC) on 26 June 2007 and in http://Bulletin No. 28/2007, the existing Saved Leave Scheme will be discontinued as of 31 December 2007. Staff participating in the Scheme will shortly receive a contract amendment stipulating the end of financial contributions compensated by save leave. Leave already accumulated on saved leave accounts can continue to be taken in accordance with the rules applicable to the current scheme. A new system of saved leave will enter into force on 1 January 2008 and will be the subject of a new implementation procedure entitled "Short-term saved leave scheme" dated 1 January 2008. At its meeting on 4 December 2007, the SCC agreed to recommend the Director-General to approve this procedure, which can be consulted on the HR Department’s website at the following address: https://cern.ch/hr-services/services-Ben/sls_shortterm.asp All staff wishing to participate in the new scheme a...

  12. Short-Term Saved Leave Scheme

    CERN Multimedia

    HR Department

    2007-01-01

    As announced at the meeting of the Standing Concertation Committee (SCC) on 26 June 2007 and in http://Bulletin No. 28/2007, the existing Saved Leave Scheme will be discontinued as of 31 December 2007. Staff participating in the Scheme will shortly receive a contract amendment stipulating the end of financial contributions compensated by save leave. Leave already accumulated on saved leave accounts can continue to be taken in accordance with the rules applicable to the current scheme. A new system of saved leave will enter into force on 1 January 2008 and will be the subject of a new im-plementation procedure entitled "Short-term saved leave scheme" dated 1 January 2008. At its meeting on 4 December 2007, the SCC agreed to recommend the Director-General to approve this procedure, which can be consulted on the HR Department’s website at the following address: https://cern.ch/hr-services/services-Ben/sls_shortterm.asp All staff wishing to participate in the new scheme ...

  13. Risk transfer via energy savings insurance; TOPICAL

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Mills, Evan

    2001-01-01

    Among the key barriers to investment in energy efficiency improvements are uncertainties about attaining projected energy savings and apprehension about potential disputes over these savings. The fields of energy management and risk management are thus intertwined. While many technical methods have emerged to manage performance risks (e.g. building commissioning), financial risk transfer techniques are less developed in the energy management arena than in other more mature segments of the economy. Energy Savings Insurance (ESI) - formal insurance of predicted energy savings - is one method of transferring financial risks away from the facility owner or energy services contractor. ESI offers a number of significant advantages over other forms of financial risk transfer, e.g. savings guarantees or performance bonds. ESI providers manage risk via pre-construction design review as well as post-construction commissioning and measurement and verification of savings. We found that the two mos t common criticisms of ESI - excessive pricing and onerous exclusions - are not born out in practice. In fact, if properly applied, ESI can potentially reduce the net cost of energy savings projects by reducing the interest rates charged by lenders, and by increasing the level of savings through quality control. Debt service can also be ensured by matching loan payments to projected energy savings while designing the insurance mechanism so that payments are made by the insurer in the event of a savings shortfall. We estimate the U.S. ESI market potential of$875 million/year in premium income. From an energy-policy perspective, ESI offers a number of potential benefits: ESI transfers performance risk from the balance sheet of the entity implementing the energy savings project, thereby freeing up capital otherwise needed to ''self-insure'' the savings. ESI reduces barriers to market entry of smaller energy services firms who do not have sufficiently strong balance sheets to self

  14. Energy savings: persuasion and persistence

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Eijadi, David; McDougall, Tom; Leaf, Kris; Douglas, Jim; Steinbock, Jason; Reimer, Paul [The Weidt Group, Minnetonka, MN (United States); Gauthier, Julia [Xcel Energy, Minneapolis, MN (United States); Wild, Doug; Richards McDaniel, Stephanie [BWBR Architects, Inc., Saint Paul, MN (United States)

    2005-07-01

    In this study, the architects, sponsoring utility and energy simulation specialist joined together to investigate the persistence of energy savings in three completed projects: a college library; a municipal transportation facility; and a hospital. The primary question being 'How well did the design decisions made with the help of simulation analysis translate into building operations over several years?' Design simulation and metered performance data are compared for specific energy-saving strategies. The paper provides a brief overview of the basis of selection of the three projects, the energy design assistance methods employed and the decisions made, along with their savings expectations. For each case, design characteristics, modelling assumptions, selected strategies and actual metered performance are outlined. We find evidence of appropriate levels of energy conservation, but they are not the absolute values predicted. In each case, the discrepancies between modelling assumptions and final construction or operating procedures are identified, examined and rectified. The paper illustrates that while owners are saving energy, they are not always getting the full savings potential for what they install. The paper concludes with a re-examination of the overall process. It evaluates the potential for additional savings of individual technologies and related larger utility incentives to design teams and building owners.

  15. Saving-Based Asset Pricing

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Dreyer, Johannes Kabderian; Schneider, Johannes; T. Smith, William

    2013-01-01

    This paper explores the implications of a novel class of preferences for the behavior of asset prices. Following a suggestion by Marshall (1920), we entertain the possibility that people derive utility not only from consumption, but also from the very act of saving. These ‘‘saving-based’’ prefere...

  16. Can health promotion programs save Medicare money?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Goetzel, Ron Z; Shechter, David; Ozminkowski, Ronald J; Stapleton, David C; Lapin, Pauline J; McGinnis, J Michael; Gordon, Catherine R; Breslow, Lester

    2007-01-01

    The impact of an aging population on escalating US healthcare costs is influenced largely by the prevalence of chronic disease in this population. Consequently, preventing or postponing disease onset among the elderly has become a crucial public health issue. Fortunately, much of the total burden of disease is attributable to conditions that are preventable. In this paper, we address whether well-designed health promotion programs can prevent illness, reduce disability, and improve the quality of life. Furthermore, we assess evidence that these programs have the potential to reduce healthcare utilization and related expenditures for the Medicare program. We hypothesize that seniors who reduce their modifiable health risks can forestall disability, reduce healthcare utilization, and save Medicare money. We end with a discussion of a new Senior Risk Reduction Demonstration, which will be initiated by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in 2007, to test whether risk reduction programs developed in the private sector can achieve health improvements among seniors and a positive return on investment for the Medicare program. PMID:18044084

  17. Trait-level and week-level regulatory focus as a motivation to craft a job

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Petrou, P.; Demerouti, E.

    2015-01-01

    Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to address regulatory focus (promotion vs prevention) as a trait-level variable and a week-level variable linked to employee job crafting behaviors (i.e. seeking resources, seeking challenges and reducing demands). The authors hypothesized that while promotion

  18. A survey of etiologic hypotheses among testicular cancer researchers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stang, A; Trabert, B; Rusner, C; Poole, C; Almstrup, K; Rajpert-De Meyts, E; McGlynn, K A

    2015-01-01

    Basic research results can provide new ideas and hypotheses to be examined in epidemiological studies. We conducted a survey among testicular cancer researchers on hypotheses concerning the etiology of this malignancy. All researchers on the mailing list of Copenhagen Testis Cancer Workshops and corresponding authors of PubMed-indexed articles identified by the search term 'testicular cancer' and published within 10 years (in total 2750 recipients) were invited to respond to an e-mail-based survey. Participants of the 8th Copenhagen Testis Cancer Workshop in May 2014 were subsequently asked to rate the plausibility of the suggested etiologic hypotheses on a scale of 1 (very implausible) to 10 (very plausible). This report describes the methodology of the survey, the score distributions by individual hypotheses, hypothesis group, and the participants' major research fields, and discuss the hypotheses that scored as most plausible. We also present plans for improving the survey that may be repeated at a next international meeting of experts in testicular cancer. Overall 52 of 99 (53%) registered participants of the 8th Copenhagen Testis Cancer Workshop submitted the plausibility rating form. Fourteen of 27 hypotheses were related to exposures during pregnancy. Hypotheses with the highest mean plausibility ratings were either related to pre-natal exposures or exposures that might have an effect during pregnancy and in post-natal life. The results of the survey may be helpful for triggering more specific etiologic hypotheses that include factors related to endocrine disruption, DNA damage, inflammation, and nutrition during pregnancy. The survey results may stimulate a multidisciplinary discussion about new etiologic hypotheses of testicular cancer. Published 2014. This article is a U. S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.

  19. Freshwater savings from marine protein consumption

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gephart, Jessica A; Pace, Michael L; D’Odorico, Paolo

    2014-01-01

    Marine fisheries provide an essential source of protein for many people around the world. Unlike alternative terrestrial sources of protein, marine fish production requires little to no freshwater inputs. Consuming marine fish protein instead of terrestrial protein therefore represents freshwater savings (equivalent to an avoided water cost) and contributes to a low water footprint diet. These water savings are realized by the producers of alternative protein sources, rather than the consumers of marine protein. This study quantifies freshwater savings from marine fish consumption around the world by estimating the water footprint of replacing marine fish with terrestrial protein based on current consumption patterns. An estimated 7 600 km 3  yr −1 of water is used for human food production. Replacing marine protein with terrestrial protein would require an additional 350 km 3  yr −1 of water, meaning that marine protein provides current water savings of 4.6%. The importance of these freshwater savings is highly uneven around the globe, with savings ranging from as little as 0 to as much as 50%. The largest savings as a per cent of current water footprints occur in Asia, Oceania, and several coastal African nations. The greatest national water savings from marine fish protein occur in Southeast Asia and the United States. As the human population increases, future water savings from marine fish consumption will be increasingly important to food and water security and depend on sustainable harvest of capture fisheries and low water footprint growth of marine aquaculture. (paper)

  20. Energy Savings in a Market Economy

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nørgaard, Jørgen

    1998-01-01

    The paper outlines the concept of energy savings as opposed to energy efficency. Afterwards are described briefly the up and down role of energy savings in recent Danish energy policy. It discusses the failure of leaving electricity savings and Integrated Resource Planning to the electricity...

  1. Improved methods to evaluate realised energy savings

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Boonekamp, P.G.M.

    2005-01-01

    This thesis regards the calculation of realised energy savings at national and sectoral level, and the policy contribution to total savings. It is observed that the results of monitoring and evaluation studies on realised energy savings are hardly applied in energy saving policy. Causes are the lack

  2. Energy saving in housing in Syria; Energieeinsparung im Wohnungsbau in Syrien

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Hantouch, Yaser

    2009-06-03

    The demand for energy is increasing in Syria annually by 10-11% and the population increases annually 2.54% This growth leads also to increase in the housing,that it is energy-unconscious and consumes many energy. This large increase in energy consumption is an important problem in the housing in Syria, particularly with the lack of observance of various climatic factors,this leads to install the heating or cooling system in all housing in order to improve thermal comfort. The aim of this work is to provide insights into residential buildings with very high energy efficiency. The starting point is the experience from other countries (such as Germany), which have extensive policies, experience and rules for energy-saving buildings. The aim of this work is to provide insights into residential buildings with very high energy efficiency to win. The starting point is the experience from other countries such as Germany, which has extensive policies and rules for energy-saving buildings have. These are transferred with appropriate additions to residential buildings in Syria, and they are specified for special conditions, as well as the economic, social, climatic and regulatory requirements in Syria. There is a new architectural concepts in the design of residential buildings in Syria on their energy issues to research.it was discussed the links between architecture, energy and ecology, concepts of energy-saving building and influencing factors in energy consumption in buildings analyzed and influence of these factors on building and energy in the study area (Syria). This work includes the calculations of energy-efficient building (temperature and energy consumption) for different variants with different simulation programs, and these are assessed socially and economically through interviews, surveys and calculations of Energy Price and the Cost of Buildings. It turns out that there are many opportunities for energy saving in housing in Syria by architectural, design

  3. Regulatory agencies and regulatory risk

    OpenAIRE

    Knieps, Günter; Weiß, Hans-Jörg

    2008-01-01

    The aim of this paper is to show that regulatory risk is due to the discretionary behaviour of regulatory agencies, caused by a too extensive regulatory mandate provided by the legislator. The normative point of reference and a behavioural model of regulatory agencies based on the positive theory of regulation are presented. Regulatory risk with regard to the future behaviour of regulatory agencies is modelled as the consequence of the ex ante uncertainty about the relative influence of inter...

  4. 49 CFR 173.219 - Life-saving appliances.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 49 Transportation 2 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Life-saving appliances. 173.219 Section 173.219... Life-saving appliances. (a) A life-saving appliance, self-inflating or non-self-inflating, containing small quantities of hazardous materials that are required as part of the life-saving appliance must...

  5. Saving in Sub-Saharan Africa

    OpenAIRE

    Ernest Aryeetey; Christopher Udry

    2000-01-01

    Gross domestic savings in Africa averaged only 8 percent of GDP in the 1980s, compared to 23 percent for Southeast Asia and 35 percent in the Newly Industrialized Economies. Aside from being generally low, saving rates in most of Africa have shown consistent decline over the last thirty years. These savings figures must be considered tentative, because they are derived as a residual in the national accounts from expenditure and production data that are themselves quite unreliable. Notwithstan...

  6. Testing competing hypotheses about single trial fMRI

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hansen, Lars Kai; Purushotham, Archana; Kim, Seong-Ge

    2002-01-01

    We use a Bayesian framework to compute probabilities of competing hypotheses about functional activation based on single trial fMRI measurements. Within the framework we obtain a complete probabilistic picture of competing hypotheses, hence control of both type I and type II errors....

  7. Empirical Analysis of the Impact of Financial Sector Reforms on Savings Mobilization in Nigeria

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Enobong Udoh

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available This paper examines whether Nigeria witnessed considerable savings mobilization amidst financial sector reforms from 2007 to 2015 using the estimation method of Autoregressive Distributed Lag. Unlike previous papers in this area that mostly focused on interest rates liberalization thesis, this paper goes deeper by looking at financial reforms across money, capital and foreign exchange markets. The estimation results show that there are still structural rigidities in the money, foreign exchange and equity markets nexus. In that, the following variables that proxy financial sector reforms namely treasury bill yield, interest rate spread, market capitalization ratio and currency in circulation ratio (which proxy technological modernization of payment systems all went against a priori expectation. However, financial reforms had one success story in credit/loans advances to private/public sectors (financial deepening which posted its correct economic sign. In sum, except for the financial deepening variable it can be safely concluded that financial reforms in Nigeria is yet to positively impact savings mobilization. The regulatory and reform authorities must show effectiveness in reforms implementation.

  8. Integrative Genetic and Epigenetic Analysis Uncovers Regulatory Mechanisms of Autoimmune Disease.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shooshtari, Parisa; Huang, Hailiang; Cotsapas, Chris

    2017-07-06

    Genome-wide association studies in autoimmune and inflammatory diseases (AID) have uncovered hundreds of loci mediating risk. These associations are preferentially located in non-coding DNA regions and in particular in tissue-specific DNase I hypersensitivity sites (DHSs). While these analyses clearly demonstrate the overall enrichment of disease risk alleles on gene regulatory regions, they are not designed to identify individual regulatory regions mediating risk or the genes under their control, and thus uncover the specific molecular events driving disease risk. To do so we have departed from standard practice by identifying regulatory regions which replicate across samples and connect them to the genes they control through robust re-analysis of public data. We find significant evidence of regulatory potential in 78/301 (26%) risk loci across nine autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, and we find that individual genes are targeted by these effects in 53/78 (68%) of these. Thus, we are able to generate testable mechanistic hypotheses of the molecular changes that drive disease risk. Copyright © 2017 American Society of Human Genetics. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  9. Scientific 'Laws', 'Hypotheses' and 'Theories'

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    verified, the hypothesis changes from the status of a 'mere' hypothesis, and ... a pre-existing law and the body of facts upon which that law is based. Hypotheses .... implicit belief that order objectively exists in nature, and that scientific laws ...

  10. Energy saving synergies in national energy systems

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Thellufsen, Jakob Zinck; Lund, Henrik

    2015-01-01

    In the transition towards a 100% renewable energy system, energy savings are essential. The possibility of energy savings through conservation or efficiency increases can be identified in, for instance, the heating and electricity sectors, in industry, and in transport. Several studies point...... to various optimal levels of savings in the different sectors of the energy system. However, these studies do not investigate the idea of energy savings being system dependent. This paper argues that such system dependency is critical to understand, as it does not make sense to analyse an energy saving...... without taking into account the actual benefit of the saving in relation to the energy system. The study therefore identifies a need to understand how saving methods may interact with each other and the system in which they are conducted. By using energy system analysis to do hourly simulation...

  11. 24 CFR 221.1 - Savings clause.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... 24 Housing and Urban Development 2 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Savings clause. 221.1 Section 221.1... MORTGAGE AND LOAN INSURANCE PROGRAMS UNDER NATIONAL HOUSING ACT AND OTHER AUTHORITIES LOW COST AND MODERATE INCOME MORTGAGE INSURANCE-SAVINGS CLAUSE Eligibility Requirements-Low Cost Homes-Savings Clause § 221.1...

  12. Energy saving and cost saving cooling; Energie und Kosten sparende Kuehlung

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Koenig, Klaus W. [Architektur- und Fachpressebuero Klaus W. Koenig, Ueberlingen (Germany)

    2012-07-01

    In the case of cost reduction, energy conservation and resource savings, rain water is an ideal medium offering more advantages in comparison to the cooling with drinking water. There are no fees for the drinking water and drainage of rain water. It is not necessary to soften rain water so that further operational costs for the treatment and drainage of waste water can be saved. The avoidance of the related material flows and necessary energy is a practiced environmental protection and climate protection.

  13. Resilient Prosumer Scenario in a Changing Regulatory Environment—The UniRCon Solution

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mihai Sanduleac

    2017-11-01

    storage available and controllable behind the meter; and (iii the UniRCon architecture. The three use-cases are then compared and assessed for four near-future timelines as starting points for the investment. Numerical simulations show the attractiveness of the UniRCon solution in what concerns both system operation costs and supply resilience. Savings are expressed as opportunity savings arising from difference in tariffs while charging and discharging the storage unit and due to the avoidance of curtailment, as well as special taxes for the connection of PV (depending on regulatory environment. An extension of the UniRCon concept is presented also at community scale, with neighbourhood energy exchange inside a resilient cluster.

  14. Scientific 'Laws', 'Hypotheses' and 'Theories'

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    theories, defines a hypothesis as "any supposition which we may ... about the origin of the solar system are also hypotheses of this type. They are about the birth of the planets, an event, which has happened, in the past history of our Universe.

  15. Running away from stress: How regulatory modes prospectively affect athletes' stress through passion.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lucidi, F; Pica, G; Mallia, L; Castrucci, E; Manganelli, S; Bélanger, J J; Pierro, A

    2016-06-01

    A prospective field study conducted with runners training for an upcoming marathon (Marathon of Rome 2013) examined the relation between regulatory modes, locomotion and assessment, and stress. Integrating regulatory mode theory and the dualistic model of passion, we hypothesized that the relation between regulatory modes (evaluated 3 months before the race) and the experience of stress approaching the marathon, is mediated by the type of passion (harmonious vs obsessive) athletes experience with regard to marathoning. Results revealed that (a) locomotion positively predicted harmonious passion, which in turn reduced athletes' experience of stress; and (b) assessment positively predicted obsessive passion, which in turn enhanced athletes' experience of stress. Overall, the present results suggest that proximal psychological mechanisms such as basic regulatory mode orientations can predict distal outcomes such as stress indirectly through their relation with motivational phenomena such as passion. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  16. Scientific'Laws','Hypotheses' and'Theories'

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    Home; Journals; Resonance – Journal of Science Education; Volume 3; Issue 12. Scientific 'Laws', 'Hypotheses' and 'Theories' - How are They Related? J R Lakshmana Rao. General Article Volume 3 Issue 12 December 1998 pp 55-61. Fulltext. Click here to view fulltext PDF. Permanent link:

  17. 'Nurture the sprouting bud; do not uproot it'. Using saving groups to save for maternal and newborn health: lessons from rural Eastern Uganda.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ekirapa-Kiracho, Elizabeth; Paina, Ligia; Muhumuza Kananura, Rornald; Mutebi, Aloysius; Jane, Pacuto; Tumuhairwe, Juliet; Tetui, Moses; Kiwanuka, Suzanne N

    2017-08-01

    Saving groups are increasingly being used to save in many developing countries. However, there is limited literature about how they can be exploited to improve maternal and newborn health. This paper describes saving practices, factors that encourage and constrain saving with saving groups, and lessons learnt while supporting communities to save through saving groups. This qualitative study was done in three districts in Eastern Uganda. Saving groups were identified and provided with support to enhance members' access to maternal and newborn health. Fifteen focus group discussions (FGDs) and 18 key informant interviews (KIIs) were conducted to elicit members' views about saving practices. Document review was undertaken to identify key lessons for supporting saving groups. Qualitative data are presented thematically. Awareness of the importance of saving, safe custody of money saved, flexible saving arrangements and easy access to loans for personal needs including transport during obstetric emergencies increased willingness to save with saving groups. Saving groups therefore provided a safety net for the poor during emergencies. Poor management of saving groups and detrimental economic practices like gambling constrained saving. Efficient running of saving groups requires that they have a clear management structure, which is legally registered with relevant authorities and that it is governed by a constitution. Saving groups were considered a useful form of saving that enabled easy acess to cash for birth preparedness and transportation during emergencies. They are like 'a sprouting bud that needs to be nurtured rather than uprooted', as they appear to have the potential to act as a safety net for poor communities that have no health insurance. Local governments should therefore strengthen the management capacity of saving groups so as to ensure their efficient running through partnerships with non-governmental organizations that can provide support to such groups.

  18. Federal Aviation Administration retained savings program proposal

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hostick, D.J.; Larson, L.L.; Hostick, C.J.

    1998-03-01

    Federal legislation allows federal agencies to retain up to 50% of the savings associated with implementing energy efficiency and water conservation measures and practices. Given budget pressures to reduce expenditures, the use of retained savings to fund additional projects represents a source of funds outside of the traditional budget cycle. The Southwest Region Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has tasked Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) to develop a model retained savings program for Southwest Region FAA use and as a prototype for consideration by the FAA. PNNL recommends the following steps be taken in developing a Southwest Region FAA retained savings program: Establish a retained savings mechanism. Determine the level at which the retained savings should be consolidated into a fund. The preliminary recommendation is to establish a revolving efficiency loan fund at the regional level. Such a mechanism allows some consolidation of savings to fund larger projects, while maintaining a sense of facility ownership in that the funds will remain within the region

  19. Regulatory and Economic Considerations of Retinal Drugs.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shah, Ankoor R; Williams, George A

    2016-01-01

    The advent of anti-VEGF therapy for neovascular age-related macular degeneration and macular edema secondary to retinal vein occlusion and diabetes mellitus has prevented blindness in tens of thousands of people. However, the costs of these drugs are without precedent in ophthalmic drug therapeutics. An analysis of the financial implications of retinal drugs and the impact of the Food and Drug Administration on treatment of retinal disease must include not only an evaluation of the direct costs of the drugs and the costs associated with their administration, but also the cost savings which accrue from their clinical benefit. This chapter will discuss the financial and regulatory issues associated with retinal drugs. © 2016 S. Karger AG, Basel.

  20. Values and Technologies in Energy Savings

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nørgård, Jørgen Stig

    2000-01-01

    of this saving can cause what is called the rebound effect, which reduces the savings obtained from the technology. Ways to avoid this effect are suggested, and they require value changes, primarly around frugality, consumption, and hard-working. There are indications that some of the necessary changes are well......The chapter is based on the assumption, that technology improvement is not sufficient to achieve a sustainable world community. Changes in people´s values are necessary. A simple model suggest how values, together with basic needs and with the environmental and societal frames, determine people......´s behavioural pattern and lifestyles. Deliberate changes in social values are illustrated by a historical example. From the side of technology the basic principles in the economy of energy savings are briefly described. The marginally profitable energy savings provides an economic saving. The application...

  1. Pain acceptance, psychological functioning, and self-regulatory fatigue in temporomandibular disorder.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Eisenlohr-Moul, Tory A; Burris, Jessica L; Evans, Daniel R

    2013-12-01

    A growing body of evidence suggests that chronic pain patients suffer from chronic self-regulatory fatigue: difficulty controlling thoughts, emotions, and behavior. Pain acceptance, which involves responding to pain and related experiences without attempts to control or avoid them (pain willingness), and pursuit of valued life activities regardless of pain (activity engagement) has been associated with various favorable outcomes in chronic pain patients, including better psychological functioning. The study presented here tested the hypotheses that pain acceptance is associated with less psychological distress, higher psychological well-being, and reduced self-regulatory fatigue in temporomandibular disorder (TMD) patients, particularly for those with longer pain duration. Cross-sectional data were provided by 135 TMD patients during an initial evaluation at a university-based tertiary orofacial pain clinic. Results of hierarchical linear regression models indicated that, controlling for pain severity, pain willingness is associated with less psychological distress and lower self-regulatory fatigue, and activity engagement is associated with greater psychological well-being. Furthermore, the effect of pain willingness on psychological distress was moderated by pain duration such that pain willingness was more strongly associated with less psychological distress in patients with longer pain duration; this moderating effect was fully mediated by self-regulatory fatigue. These findings suggest pain willingness may buffer against self-regulatory fatigue in those with longer pain duration, and such conservation of self-regulatory resources may protect against psychological symptoms.

  2. Inference of Transcription Regulatory Network in Low Phytic Acid Soybean Seeds

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Neelam Redekar

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available A dominant loss of function mutation in myo-inositol phosphate synthase (MIPS gene and recessive loss of function mutations in two multidrug resistant protein type-ABC transporter genes not only reduce the seed phytic acid levels in soybean, but also affect the pathways associated with seed development, ultimately resulting in low emergence. To understand the regulatory mechanisms and identify key genes that intervene in the seed development process in low phytic acid crops, we performed computational inference of gene regulatory networks in low and normal phytic acid soybeans using a time course transcriptomic data and multiple network inference algorithms. We identified a set of putative candidate transcription factors and their regulatory interactions with genes that have functions in myo-inositol biosynthesis, auxin-ABA signaling, and seed dormancy. We evaluated the performance of our unsupervised network inference method by comparing the predicted regulatory network with published regulatory interactions in Arabidopsis. Some contrasting regulatory interactions were observed in low phytic acid mutants compared to non-mutant lines. These findings provide important hypotheses on expression regulation of myo-inositol metabolism and phytohormone signaling in developing low phytic acid soybeans. The computational pipeline used for unsupervised network learning in this study is provided as open source software and is freely available at https://lilabatvt.github.io/LPANetwork/.

  3. Year-round daylight saving time will save more energy in India than corresponding DST or time zones

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ahuja, Dilip R.; SenGupta, D.P.

    2012-01-01

    Many countries have experimented with daylight saving time (DST) to save energy and to align human activities more closely to the daily cycle of light and darkness. Using a novel methodology, we estimate the year-round energy savings to be obtained from advancing Indian Standard Time (IST), from the introduction of DST, and from dividing the country into two time zones. We find that the option of advancing IST consistently saves more energy than the corresponding DST option, which in turn saves more energy than the corresponding time zones option. This is because the energy benefits of advancing IST accrue for the entire year throughout the country, whereas the benefits of DST are confined to summer months and the benefits of two time zones are largely in the lower energy consuming eastern region. We recommend advancing IST by half-hour to being six hours ahead of UTC. This confers the advantages of DST and time zones without their disadvantages and is forecast to save more than 2 billion kWh of electricity every year during evening peaks that are difficult to supply. While these results are India-specific, similar exercises would be useful to many other countries. - Highlights: ► Advancing IST (YRDST) consistently saves more energy than the corresponding DST. ► DST consistently saves more energy than dividing India into two time zones. ► There are also many non-energy benefits of advancing IST. ► Results are for India; countries with DST may find it useful to consider YRDST.

  4. Testing hypotheses for differences between linear regression lines

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stanley J. Zarnoch

    2009-01-01

    Five hypotheses are identified for testing differences between simple linear regression lines. The distinctions between these hypotheses are based on a priori assumptions and illustrated with full and reduced models. The contrast approach is presented as an easy and complete method for testing for overall differences between the regressions and for making pairwise...

  5. iPSC-Derived Regulatory Dendritic Cells Inhibit Allograft Rejection by Generating Alloantigen-Specific Regulatory T Cells

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Songjie Cai

    2017-05-01

    Full Text Available Regulatory dendritic cell (DCregs-based immunotherapy is a potential therapeutic tool for transplant rejection. We generated DCregs from murine induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs, which could remain in a “stable immature stage” even under strong stimulation. Harnessing this characteristic, we hypothesized that iPS-DCregs worked as a negative vaccine to generate regulatory T cells (Tregs, and induced donor-specific allograft acceptance. We immunized naive CBA (H-2Kk mice with B6 (H-2Kb iPS-DCregs and found that Tregs (CD4+CD25+FOXP3+ significantly increased in CBA splenocytes. Moreover, immunized CBA recipients permanently accepted B6 cardiac grafts in a donor-specific pattern. We demonstrated mechanistically that donor-type iPS-DCregs triggered transforming growth factor β1 secretion, under which the donor-antigen peptides directed naive CD4+ T cells to differentiate into donor-specific FOXP3+ Tregs instead of into effector T cells in vivo. These findings highlight the potential of iPS-DCregs as a key cell therapy resource in clinical transplantation.

  6. Energy savings in Danish residential building stock

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Tommerup, Henrik M.; Svendsen, Svend

    2006-01-01

    a short account of the technical energy-saving possibilities that are present in existing dwellings and presents a financial methodology used for assessing energy-saving measures. In order to estimate the total savings potential detailed calculations have been performed in a case with two typical...... buildings representing the residential building stock and based on these calculations an assessment of the energy-saving potential is performed. A profitable savings potential of energy used for space heating of about 80% is identified over 45 years (until 2050) within the residential building stock......A large potential for energy savings exists in the Danish residential building stock due to the fact that 75% of the buildings were constructed before 1979 when the first important demands for energy performance of building were introduced. It is also a fact that many buildings in Denmark face...

  7. Consumer behaviours: Teaching children to save energy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grønhøj, Alice

    2016-08-01

    Energy-saving programmes are increasingly targeted at children to encourage household energy conservation. A study involving the assignment of energy-saving interventions to Girl Scouts shows that a child-focused intervention can improve energy-saving behaviours among children and their parents.

  8. ONU Power Saving Scheme for EPON System

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mukai, Hiroaki; Tano, Fumihiko; Tanaka, Masaki; Kozaki, Seiji; Yamanaka, Hideaki

    PON (Passive Optical Network) achieves FTTH (Fiber To The Home) economically, by sharing an optical fiber among plural subscribers. Recently, global climate change has been recognized as a serious near term problem. Power saving techniques for electronic devices are important. In PON system, the ONU (Optical Network Unit) power saving scheme has been studied and defined in XG-PON. In this paper, we propose an ONU power saving scheme for EPON. Then, we present an analysis of the power reduction effect and the data transmission delay caused by the ONU power saving scheme. According to the analysis, we propose an efficient provisioning method for the ONU power saving scheme which is applicable to both of XG-PON and EPON.

  9. 12 CFR 541.18 - Interim Federal savings association.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... an existing savings and loan holding company or to facilitate any other transaction the Office may... 12 Banks and Banking 5 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Interim Federal savings association. 541.18... REGULATIONS AFFECTING FEDERAL SAVINGS ASSOCIATIONS § 541.18 Interim Federal savings association. The term...

  10. In silico generation of alternative hypotheses using causal mapping (CMAP.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gabriel E Weinreb

    Full Text Available Previously, we introduced causal mapping (CMAP as an easy to use systems biology tool for studying the behavior of biological processes that occur at the cellular and molecular level. CMAP is a coarse-grained graphical modeling approach in which the system of interest is modeled as an interaction map between functional elements of the system, in a manner similar to portrayals of signaling pathways commonly used by molecular cell biologists. CMAP describes details of the interactions while maintaining the simplicity of other qualitative methods (e.g., Boolean networks.In this paper, we use the CMAP methodology as a tool for generating hypotheses about the mechanisms that regulate molecular and cellular systems. Furthermore, our approach allows competing hypotheses to be ranked according to a fitness index and suggests experimental tests to distinguish competing high fitness hypotheses. To motivate the CMAP as a hypotheses generating tool and demonstrate the methodology, we first apply this protocol to a simple test-case of a three-element signaling module. Our methods are next applied to the more complex phenomenon of cortical oscillations observed in spreading cells. This analysis produces two high fitness hypotheses for the mechanism that underlies this dynamic behavior and suggests experiments to distinguish the hypotheses. The method can be widely applied to other cellular systems to generate and compare alternative hypotheses based on experimentally observed data and using computer simulations.

  11. Prescription Program Provides Significant Savings

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rowan, James M.

    2010-01-01

    Most school districts today are looking for ways to save money without decreasing services to its staff. Retired pharmacist Tim Sylvester, a lifelong resident of Alpena Public Schools in Alpena, Michigan, presented the district with a pharmaceuticals plan that would save the district money without raising employee co-pays for prescriptions. The…

  12. 12 CFR 583.20 - Savings and loan holding company.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 12 Banks and Banking 5 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Savings and loan holding company. 583.20... REGULATIONS AFFECTING SAVINGS AND LOAN HOLDING COMPANIES § 583.20 Savings and loan holding company. The term savings and loan holding company means any company that directly or indirectly controls a savings...

  13. Macroeconomic determinants of savings in Egypt "Statistical Model"

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hanaa Abdelaty Hasan Esmail

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available Like lot of countries, aggregate consumption constitutes a major portion of Gross Domestic Product (GDP in Egypt. Consumption decisions determine savings decisions. In long term growth literature, differences in long term growth had been explained to a large extent by differences in the rates of savings which also determine a country’s investment in productive capacity, human capital and socio-economic infrastructure. In this study, we analyse macroeconomic determinants of savings in Egypt using Ordinary multiple regression. Our results indicate that national savings rate is positively related with real GDP growth rate. This suggests that saving is a positive function of income. The evidence suggests that national savings rate is negatively related with federal debt growth and inflation. This hints towards crowding out of private sector investment through decline in savings rate as a result of government’s indebtedness. Finally, negative association between savings rate and inflation implies that the consumer is rational and makes decisions based on his perceptions when it comes to allocating the lifetime resources over the period of his life. Increase in inflation dampens the incentive to save and people respond rationally which is made evident by the negative sign on inflation coefficient in our model.

  14. Regulatory design governing progression of population growth phases in bacteria.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Agustino Martínez-Antonio

    Full Text Available It has long been noted that batch cultures inoculated with resting bacteria exhibit a progression of growth phases traditionally labeled lag, exponential, pre-stationary and stationary. However, a detailed molecular description of the mechanisms controlling the transitions between these phases is lacking. A core circuit, formed by a subset of regulatory interactions involving five global transcription factors (FIS, HNS, IHF, RpoS and GadX, has been identified by correlating information from the well- established transcriptional regulatory network of Escherichia coli and genome-wide expression data from cultures in these different growth phases. We propose a functional role for this circuit in controlling progression through these phases. Two alternative hypotheses for controlling the transition between the growth phases are first, a continuous graded adjustment to changing environmental conditions, and second, a discontinuous hysteretic switch at critical thresholds between growth phases. We formulate a simple mathematical model of the core circuit, consisting of differential equations based on the power-law formalism, and show by mathematical and computer-assisted analysis that there are critical conditions among the parameters of the model that can lead to hysteretic switch behavior, which--if validated experimentally--would suggest that the transitions between different growth phases might be analogous to cellular differentiation. Based on these provocative results, we propose experiments to test the alternative hypotheses.

  15. Regulatory design governing progression of population growth phases in bacteria.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Martínez-Antonio, Agustino; Lomnitz, Jason G; Sandoval, Santiago; Aldana, Maximino; Savageau, Michael A

    2012-01-01

    It has long been noted that batch cultures inoculated with resting bacteria exhibit a progression of growth phases traditionally labeled lag, exponential, pre-stationary and stationary. However, a detailed molecular description of the mechanisms controlling the transitions between these phases is lacking. A core circuit, formed by a subset of regulatory interactions involving five global transcription factors (FIS, HNS, IHF, RpoS and GadX), has been identified by correlating information from the well- established transcriptional regulatory network of Escherichia coli and genome-wide expression data from cultures in these different growth phases. We propose a functional role for this circuit in controlling progression through these phases. Two alternative hypotheses for controlling the transition between the growth phases are first, a continuous graded adjustment to changing environmental conditions, and second, a discontinuous hysteretic switch at critical thresholds between growth phases. We formulate a simple mathematical model of the core circuit, consisting of differential equations based on the power-law formalism, and show by mathematical and computer-assisted analysis that there are critical conditions among the parameters of the model that can lead to hysteretic switch behavior, which--if validated experimentally--would suggest that the transitions between different growth phases might be analogous to cellular differentiation. Based on these provocative results, we propose experiments to test the alternative hypotheses.

  16. Cogeneration an opportunity for industrial energy saving

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Pasha, R.A.; Butt, Z.S.

    2011-01-01

    This paper is about the cogeneration from industrial energy savings opportunities perspective. The energy crisis in these days forces industry to find ways to cope with critical situation. There are several energy savings options which if properly planned and implemented would be beneficial both for industry and community. One way of energy saving is Cogeneration i.e. Combined Heat and Power. The paper will review the basic methods, types and then discuss the suitability of these options for specific industry. It has been identified that generally process industry can get benefits of energy savings. (author)

  17. Are Women Empowered to Save?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Frances Woolley

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available Female economic empowerment – rising earnings, increased opportunities, greater labour force participation – has given many women the means to save. The shifting of responsibility for retirement security from employers and governments onto individuals has given women a reason to save. But are women actually saving? In this paper, we explore the relationship between the gender dynamics within a family and the accumulation of wealth. We find that little evidence in support of the conventional wisdom that families with a female financial manager save more and repay their debts more often. We find some evidence that male financial management leads to greater savings, and other evidence suggesting that savings patterns have a complex relationship with intra-family gender dynamics. El empoderamiento económico de la mujer – el aumento de los ingresos, mayores oportunidades, mayor participación laboral – ha dado a muchas mujeres los medios para ahorrar. Al pasar la responsabilidad de los ingresos de la jubilación de los empleadores y el gobierno a los individuos ha dado a las mujeres un motivo para ahorrar. ¿Pero realmente ahorran las mujeres? En este artículo se analizan las relaciones entre las dinámicas de género en una familia, y la acumulación de riqueza. Se ha llegado a la conclusión de que hay poca evidencia que apoye la creencia convencional de que las familias en las que una mujer gestiona las financias ahorran más y devuelven sus créditos más frecuentemente. Se ha encontrado alguna evidencia de que la gestión financiera por varones acarrea mayores ahorros, y otras evidencias que sugieren que los patrones de ahorro tienen una relación compleja con las dinámicas de género dentro de la familia.

  18. Energy conservation. Federal shared energy savings contracting

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Fultz, Keith O.; Milans, Flora H.; Kirk, Roy J.; Welker, Robert A.; Sparling, William J.; Butler, Sharon E.; Irwin, Susan W.

    1989-04-01

    A number of impediments have discouraged federal agencies from using shared energy savings contracts. As of November 30, 1988, only two federal agencies - the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) and the Department of the Army -had awarded such contracts even though they can yield significant energy and cost savings. The three major impediments we identified were uncertainty about the applicability of a particular procurement policy and practice, lack of management incentives, and difficulty in measuring energy and cost savings. To address the first impediment, the Department of Energy (DOE) developed a manual on shared energy savings contracting. The second impediment was addressed when the 100th Congress authorized incentives for federal agencies to enter into shared savings contracts. DOE addressed the third impediment by developing a methodology for calculating energy consumption and cost savings. However, because of differing methodological preferences, this issue will need to be addressed on a contract-by-contract basis. Some state governments and private sector firms are using performance contracts to reduce energy costs in their buildings and facilities. We were able to identify six states that were using performance contracts. Five have established programs, and all six states have projects under contract. The seven energy service companies we contacted indicated interest in federal shared energy savings contracting

  19. Household water saving: Evidence from Spain

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aisa, Rosa; Larramona, Gemma

    2012-12-01

    This article focuses on household water use in Spain by analyzing the influence of a detailed set of factors. We find that, although the presence of both water-saving equipment and water-conservation habits leads to water savings, the factors that influence each are not the same. In particular, our results show that those individuals most committed to the adoption of water-saving equipment and, at the same time, less committed to water-conservation habits tend to have higher incomes.

  20. Feeding your piggy bank with intentions : A study on saving behaviour, saving strategies, and happiness

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    De Francisco Vela, S.; Desmet, P.M.A.; Casais, M.

    2014-01-01

    The act of saving money can connect one’s present state to a meaningful future state, especially if we consider money not as a direct source of happiness, but as a resource for engaging in meaningful activities. To explore how design can contribute to making the act of saving more meaningful, we

  1. Saving electricity in a hurry - update 2011

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Pasquier, Sara Bryan

    2011-06-15

    As demonstrated by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami-triggered blackouts in Japan, electricity shortfalls can happen anytime and anywhere. Countries can minimise the negative economic, social and environmental impacts of such electricity shortfalls by developing emergency energy-saving strategies before a crisis occurs. This new IEA report highlights preliminary findings and conclusions from electricity shortfalls in Japan, the United States, New Zealand, South Africa and Chile. It draws on recent analysis to: reinforce well-established guidelines on diagnosing electricity shortfalls, identifying energy-saving opportunities and selecting a package of energy-saving measures; and highlight proven practice for implementing emergency energy-saving programmes. This paper will be valuable to government, academic, private-sector and civil-society stakeholders who inform, develop and implement electricity policy in general, and emergency energy-saving programmes in particular.

  2. RECRUITMENT FINANCED BY SAVED LEAVE (RSL PROGRAMME)

    CERN Multimedia

    Division du Personnel; Tel. 73903

    1999-01-01

    Transfer to the saved leave account and saved leave bonusStaff members participating in the RSL programme may opt to transfer up to 10 days of unused annual leave or unused compensatory leave into their saved leave account, at the end of the leave year, i.e. 30 September (as set out in the implementation procedure dated 27 August 1997).A leave transfer request form, which you should complete, sign and return, if you wish to use this possibility, has been addressed you. To allow the necessary time for the processing of your request, you should return it without delay.As foreseen in the implementation procedure, an additional day of saved leave will be granted for each full period of 20 days remaining in the saved leave account on 31 December 1999, for any staff member participating in the RSL programme until that date.For part-time staff members participating in the RSL programme, the above-mentioned days of leave (annual, compensatory and saved) are adjusted proportionally to their contractual working week as...

  3. Chinese hotel general managers' perspectives on energy-saving practices

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhu, Yidan

    As hotels' concern about sustainability and budget-control is growing steadily, energy-saving issues have become one of the important management concerns hospitality industry face. By executing proper energy-saving practices, previous scholars believed that hotel operation costs can decrease dramatically. Moreover, they believed that conducting energy-saving practices may eventually help the hotel to gain other benefits such as an improved reputation and stronger competitive advantage. The energy-saving issue also has become a critical management problem for the hotel industry in China. Previous research has not investigated energy-saving in China's hotel segment. To achieve a better understanding of the importance of energy-saving, this document attempts to present some insights into China's energy-saving practices in the tourist accommodations sector. Results of the study show the Chinese general managers' attitudes toward energy-saving issues and the differences among the diverse hotel managers who responded to the study. Study results indicate that in China, most of the hotels' energy bills decrease due to the implementation of energy-saving equipments. General managers of hotels in operation for a shorter period of time are typically responsible for making decisions about energy-saving issues; older hotels are used to choosing corporate level concerning to this issue. Larger Chinese hotels generally have official energy-saving usage training sessions for employees, but smaller Chinese hotels sometimes overlook the importance of employee training. The study also found that for the Chinese hospitality industry, energy-saving practices related to electricity are the most efficient and common way to save energy, but older hotels also should pay attention to other ways of saving energy such as water conservation or heating/cooling system.

  4. Reactor Core Coolability Analysis during Hypothesized Severe Accidents of OPR1000

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lee, Yongjae; Seo, Seungwon; Kim, Sung Joong; Ha, Kwang Soon; Kim, Hwan-Yeol

    2014-01-01

    Assessment of the safety features over the hypothesized severe accidents may be performed experimentally or numerically. Due to the considerable time and expenditures, experimental assessment is implemented only to the limited cases. Therefore numerical assessment has played a major role in revisiting severe accident analysis of the existing or newly designed power plants. Computer codes for the numerical analysis of severe accidents are categorized as the fast running integral code and detailed code. Fast running integral codes are characterized by a well-balanced combination of detailed and simplified models for the simulation of the relevant phenomena within an NPP in the case of a severe accident. MAAP, MELCOR and ASTEC belong to the examples of fast running integral codes. Detailed code is to model as far as possible all relevant phenomena in detail by mechanistic models. The examples of detailed code is SCDAP/RELAP5. Using the MELCOR, Carbajo. investigated sensitivity studies of Station Black Out (SBO) using the MELCOR for Peach Bottom BWR. Park et al. conduct regulatory research of the PWR severe accident. Ahn et al. research sensitivity analysis of the severe accident for APR1400 with MELCOR 1.8.4. Lee et al. investigated RCS depressurization strategy and developed a core coolability map for independent scenarios of Small Break Loss-of-Coolant Accident (SBLOCA), SBO, and Total Loss of Feed Water (TLOFW). In this study, three initiating cases were selected, which are SBLOCA without SI, SBO, and TLOFW. The initiating cases exhibit the highest probability of transitioning into core damage according to PSA 1 of OPR 1000. The objective of this study is to investigate the reactor core coolability during hypothesized severe accidents of OPR1000. As a representative indicator, we have employed Jakob number and developed JaCET and JaMCT using the MELCOR simulation. Although the RCS pressures for the respective accident scenarios were different, the JaMCT and Ja

  5. A functional SNP in the regulatory region of the decay-accelerating factor gene associates with extraocular muscle pareses in myasthenia gravis

    KAUST Repository

    Heckmann, J M; Uwimpuhwe, H; Ballo, R; Kaur, M; Bajic, Vladimir B.; Prince, S

    2009-01-01

    Complement activation in myasthenia gravis (MG) may damage muscle endplate and complement regulatory proteins such as decay-accelerating factor (DAF) or CD55 may be protective. We hypothesize that the increased prevalence of severe extraocular

  6. New hypotheses regarding the Danish health puzzle.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bakah, May; Raphael, Dennis

    2017-12-01

    Nordic welfare states have achieved admirable population health profiles as a result of public policies that provide economic and social security across the life course. Denmark has been an exception to this rule, as its life expectancies and infant mortality rates since the mid-1970s have lagged behind the other Nordic nations and, in the case of life expectancy, behind most Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development nations. In this review paper, we identify a number of new hypotheses for why this may be the case. These hypotheses concern the health effects of neo-liberal restructuring of the economy and its institutions, the institution of flexi-security in Denmark's labour market and the influence of Denmark's tobacco and alcohol industries. Also of note is that Denmark experienced higher unemployment rates during its initial period of health stagnation, as well as its treatment of non-Western immigrants and high wealth inequality and, until recently, the fact that Denmark did not systematically address the issue of health inequalities. These hypotheses may serve as covering explanations for the usually provided accounts of elevated behavioural risks and psychosocial stress as being responsible for Denmark's health profile.

  7. Poor Families Striving to Save in Matched Children's Savings Accounts: Findings from a Randomized Experimental Design in Uganda.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Karimli, Leyla; Ssewamala, Fred M; Neilands, Torsten B

    2014-12-01

    This study examines participants' savings in children's savings accounts (CSAs) set up for AIDS-orphaned children ages 10-15 in Uganda. Using a cluster randomized experimental design, we examine the extent to which families participating in a CSA program report more savings than their counterparts not participating in the program, explore the extent to which families who participate in the CSA program report using formal financial institutions compared with families who do not have a CSA, and consider whether families participating in the CSA program bring new money into the CSA or whether they reshuffle existing household assets. We find that participating in a CSA increased families' likelihood to report having saved money. However, our results show no intervention effect either on the amount of self-reported savings or on the likelihood of using formal financial institutions. Further research is needed to understand whether use of a CSA helps families generate new wealth.

  8. Does extending daylight saving time save energy? Evidence from an Australian experiment

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Kellogg, R. [California Univ., Berkeley, CA (United States). Dept. of Agricultural and Resource Economics; Wolff, H. [California Univ., Berkeley, CA (United States). Dept. of Agricultural and Resource Economics]|[Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit (IZA), Bonn (Germany)

    2007-03-15

    Several countries are considering extending Daylight Saving Time (DST) in order to conserve energy, and the U.S. will extend DST by one month beginning in 2007. However, projections that these extensions will reduce electricity consumption rely on extrapolations and simulations rather than empirical evidence. This paper, in contrast, examines a quasiexperiment in which parts of Australia extended DST in 2000 to facilitate the Sydney Olympics. Using detailed panel data and a triple differences specification, we show that the extension did not conserve electricity, and that a prominent simulation model overstates electricity savings when it is applied to Australia. (orig.)

  9. Chapter 21: Estimating Net Savings - Common Practices. The Uniform Methods Project: Methods for Determining Energy Efficiency Savings for Specific Measures

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Kurnik, Charles W [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Violette, Daniel M. [Navigant, Boulder, CO (United States); Rathbun, Pamela [Tetra Tech, Madison, WI (United States)

    2017-11-02

    This chapter focuses on the methods used to estimate net energy savings in evaluation, measurement, and verification (EM and V) studies for energy efficiency (EE) programs. The chapter provides a definition of net savings, which remains an unsettled topic both within the EE evaluation community and across the broader public policy evaluation community, particularly in the context of attribution of savings to a program. The chapter differs from the measure-specific Uniform Methods Project (UMP) chapters in both its approach and work product. Unlike other UMP resources that provide recommended protocols for determining gross energy savings, this chapter describes and compares the current industry practices for determining net energy savings but does not prescribe methods.

  10. [Saving motives in young, middle-aged, and older adults. Preliminary results of a new inventory for exploring lifespan saving motives].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rager, B; Lang, F R; Wagner, G G

    2012-12-01

    There is some research on personal reasons for saving money in the economic sciences. However, not much is known about the age differences of saving motives. In this vein, the future time perspective (FTP) is known to play a critical role for motivation across the life span. In this study, we introduce a new Saving Motive Inventory (SMI), which also covers saving goals after retirement. Furthermore, it is argued that additional saving motives that are not based on economic models of life-cycle saving also exist. In accordance with the socio-emotional selectivity theory, we explored age differences in an online survey with 496 participants from young (19-44 years), middle-aged (45-64 years), and older (65-86 years) adulthood, who completed a questionnaire on saving motives, personality, and future-related thinking (e.g., Future Time Perspective Scale, Life Orientation Test). Results of the explorative Factor Analysis (EFA) are consistent with the theoretical expectations. The factors are generativity, educational investment, consumption, indifference, and provision for death and dying. Together these five factors account for 67% of the variance. In general, the inventory is reliable and valid with respect to the expected internal and external criteria. It contributes to better understanding of saving motives over the lifespan, especially with respect to effects of the future time perspective.

  11. Regulatory focus and burnout in nurses: The mediating effect of perception of transformational leadership.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shi, Rui; Zhang, Shilei; Xu, Hang; Liu, Xufeng; Miao, Danmin

    2015-12-01

    This correlation study investigated the relationship between nurses' regulatory focus and burnout, as mediated by their perceptions of transformational leadership, using a cross-sectional research design with anonymous questionnaires. In July-August 2012, data were collected from 378 nurses from three hospitals in Shaanxi Province, China, using self-report questionnaires for measuring the nurses' regulatory focus, their level of burnout and their perception of whether the leadership of their supervisor was transformational. Structural equation modelling and bootstrapping procedures were used to identify the mediating effect of their perceptions of transformational leadership. The results supported our hypothesized model. The type of regulatory focus emerged as a significant predictor of burnout. Having a perception of transformational leadership partially mediated the relationship between regulatory focus and burnout. Having a promotion focus reduced burnout when the participants perceived transformational leadership, whereas having a prevention focus exhibited the opposite pattern. The mediating effect of the perception of transformational leadership suggests that a promotion focus may help diminish burnout, directly and indirectly. Nurse managers must be aware of the role of a regulatory focus and cultivate promotion focus in their followers. © 2014 Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.

  12. Control Evaluation Information System Savings

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Eddy Sutedjo

    2011-05-01

    Full Text Available The purpose of this research is to evaluate the control of information system savings in the banking and to identify the weaknesses and problem happened in those saving systems. Research method used are book studies by collecting data and information needed and field studies by interview, observation, questioner, and checklist using COBIT method as a standard to assess the information system control of the company. The expected result about the evaluation result that show in the problem happened and recommendation given as the evaluation report and to give a view about the control done by the company. Conclusion took from this research that this banking company has met standards although some weaknesses still exists in the system.Index Terms - Control Information System, Savings

  13. Ethical and legal challenges in bioenergy governance: Coping with value disagreement and regulatory complexity

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gamborg, Christian; Anker, Helle Tegner; Sandøe, Peter

    2014-01-01

    The article focuses on the interplay between two factors giving rise to friction in bioenergy governance: profound value disagreements (e.g. the prioritizing of carbon concerns like worries over GHG emissions savings over non-carbon related concerns) and regulatory complexity (in terms of regulatory measures and options). We present ethical and legal analyses of the current stalemate on bioenergy governance in the EU using two illustrative cases: liquid biofuels for transport and solid biomass-based bioenergy. The two cases disclose some similarities between these two factors, but the remaining differences may partly explain, or justify, contrasting forms of governance. While there seems to be no easy way in which the EU and national governments can deal with the multiple sustainability issues raised by bioenergy, it is argued that failure to deal explicitly with the underlying value disagreements, or to make apparent the regulatory complexity, clouds the issue of how to move forward with governance of bioenergy. We suggest that governance should be shaped with greater focus on the role of value disagreements and regulatory complexity. There is a need for more openness and transparency about such factors, and about the inherent trade-offs in bioenergy governance. - Highlights: • Ethical and legal challenges in governance of liquid biofuels and wood pellets. • EU sustainability criteria legal and ethical analysis—EU bioenergy policy options. • Analysis of interplay between carbon and non-carbon concerns and regulatory options. • Governance must cope with value disagreement and regulatory complexity

  14. The revelation effect: A meta-analytic test of hypotheses.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aßfalg, André; Bernstein, Daniel M; Hockley, William

    2017-12-01

    Judgments can depend on the activity directly preceding them. An example is the revelation effect whereby participants are more likely to claim that a stimulus is familiar after a preceding task, such as solving an anagram, than without a preceding task. We test conflicting predictions of four revelation-effect hypotheses in a meta-analysis of 26 years of revelation-effect research. The hypotheses' predictions refer to three subject areas: (1) the basis of judgments that are subject to the revelation effect (recollection vs. familiarity vs. fluency), (2) the degree of similarity between the task and test item, and (3) the difficulty of the preceding task. We use a hierarchical multivariate meta-analysis to account for dependent effect sizes and variance in experimental procedures. We test the revelation-effect hypotheses with a model selection procedure, where each model corresponds to a prediction of a revelation-effect hypothesis. We further quantify the amount of evidence for one model compared to another with Bayes factors. The results of this analysis suggest that none of the extant revelation-effect hypotheses can fully account for the data. The general vagueness of revelation-effect hypotheses and the scarcity of data were the major limiting factors in our analyses, emphasizing the need for formalized theories and further research into the puzzling revelation effect.

  15. The influence of regulatory fit on evaluation and intentions to buy genetically modified foods: The mediating role of social identification

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Fransen, M.L.; Reinders, M.J.; Bartels, J.; Maassen, R.L.

    2010-01-01

    The present study examines how communicated messages could be effective in affecting consumers' attitudes and behavioural intentions regarding genetically modified (GM) foods. Based on Regulatory Focus Theory, it was hypothesized that exposure to a communication message matching a consumer's

  16. Housing-related lifestyle and energy saving

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Thøgersen, John

    2017-01-01

    of relevant background characteristics. A multivariate GLM analysis reveals that when differences in housing-related lifestyles are controlled, neither country of residence nor the interaction between lifestyle and country of residence influence energy saving innovativeness or everyday energy-saving efforts...

  17. Entrepreneurial Saving Practices and Reinvestment : Theory and Evidence

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Beck, T.H.L.; Pamuk, H.; Uras, R.B.

    2014-01-01

    We use a novel enterprise survey from Tanzania to gauge the relationship between saving instruments and entrepreneurial reinvestment. While most informal savings practices do not imply a lower likelihood of entrepreneurial reinvestment when compared with formal savings practices, we find a

  18. Singularity hypotheses a scientific and philosophical assessment

    CERN Document Server

    Moor, James; Søraker, Johnny; Steinhart, Eric

    2012-01-01

    Singularity Hypotheses: A Scientific and Philosophical Assessment offers authoritative, jargon-free essays and critical commentaries on accelerating technological progress and the notion of technological singularity. It focuses on conjectures about the intelligence explosion, transhumanism, and whole brain emulation. Recent years have seen a plethora of forecasts about the profound, disruptive impact that is likely to result from further progress in these areas. Many commentators however doubt the scientific rigor of these forecasts, rejecting them as speculative and unfounded. We therefore invited prominent computer scientists, physicists, philosophers, biologists, economists and other thinkers to assess the singularity hypotheses. Their contributions go beyond speculation, providing deep insights into the main issues and a balanced picture of the debate.

  19. Entrepreneurial saving practices and reinvestment : Theory and evidence

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Beck, T.H.L.; Pamuk, Haki; Uras, Burak

    2017-01-01

    We use a novel enterprise survey to gauge the relationship between saving instruments and entrepreneurial reinvestment. We show that while most informal saving practices are not associated with a lower likelihood of reinvestment when compared with formal saving practices, there is a significantly

  20. Overview of contractual savings institutions

    OpenAIRE

    Vittas, Dimitri; Skully, Michael

    1991-01-01

    Contractual savings institutions include national provident funds, life insurance companies, private pension funds, and funded social pension insurance systems. They have long-term liabilities and stable cash flows and are therefore ideal providers of term finance, not only to government and industry, but also to municipal authorities and the housing sector. Except for Singapore, Malaysia, and a few other countries, most developing countries have small and insignificant contractual savings in...

  1. China energy-water nexus: Assessing the water-saving synergy effects of energy-saving policies during the eleventh Five-year Plan

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gu, Alun; Teng, Fei; Wang, Yu

    2014-01-01

    Highlights: • Energy and water limit China’s sustainable development. • Current energy policies fail to address water saving issues. • The energy-water coefficient is estimated for both direct use and indirect use. • Water saving effects associated with energy-saving policies is calculated. • Water-energy nexus should be enhanced in key industrial sectors. - Abstract: Energy and water have become major factors limiting sustainable development in China. Energy efficiency and optimization of water management are critical for the healthy growth of the Chinese economy. Current national energy policies fail to adequately address water use issues. Similarly, current water policies do not consider the impact of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Consequently, few studies have investigated the relationship between energy consumption and water use. The present study analyzes the energy-water nexus in Chinese industries using input–output tables. Coefficients that characterize the relationship between energy consumption and water are used to describe the supply-consumption relationship between the water supply and primary energy sectors. Next, we calculate the water-saving effects associated with the enforcement of energy-saving policies in selected industrial sectors during the eleventh Five-year Plan, from 2005 to 2010. These calculations address the ferrous metals, non-ferrous metals, petrochemical engineering, building materials, and electricity industries as well as key light industries. Our findings indicate that energy-saving efforts in these industries will result in savings in water consumption. This study suggests that a cooperative relationship between water and energy conservation efforts should be an important factor in creating policies that encourage simultaneous savings of both resources. Additionally, the study indicates that government should promote water- and energy-saving techniques in key industrial sectors to encourage

  2. 37 CFR 11.61 - Savings clause.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 37 Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Savings clause. 11.61 Section... Disciplinary Proceedings; Jurisdiction, Sanctions, Investigations, and Proceedings § 11.61 Savings clause. (a... subsequent to such effective date, if such conduct would continue to justify suspension or exclusion under...

  3. Refrigeration: Introducing energy saving opportunities for business

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    NONE

    2006-04-15

    In some industries, most notably food and drink and chemicals, refrigeration accounts for a significant proportion of overall site energy costs. For instance, in the industrial handling of meat, poultry and fish, it often accounts for 50% of total energy costs. In ice-cream production the proportion is 70%. In a number of commercial sectors, refrigeration also represents a significant proportion of overall energy costs. For example: Cold storage 90%; Food supermarkets 50%; Small shops with refrigerated cabinets 70% or over; Pubs and clubs 30%. Against these high costs, even a small reduction in refrigeration energy use can offer significant cost savings, resulting in increased profits. Energy saving need not be expensive. Energy savings of up to 20% can be realised in many refrigeration plant through actions that require little or no investment. In addition, improving the efficiency and reducing the load on a refrigeration plant can improve reliability and reduce the likelihood of a breakdown. Most organisations can save energy and money on refrigeration by: More efficient equipment; Good maintenance; Housekeeping and control. This publication provides an understanding of the operation of refrigeration systems, identifies where savings can be realised and will enable readers to present an informed case on energy savings to key decision makers within their organisation. (GB)

  4. REMINDER Saved Leave Scheme (SLS) : Simplified procedure for the transfer of leave to saved leave accounts

    CERN Multimedia

    HR Division

    2001-01-01

    As part of the process of streamlining procedures, the HR and AS Divisions have jointly developed a system whereby annual and compensatory leave will henceforth be automatically transferred1) to saved leave accounts. Under the provisions of the voluntary saved leave scheme (SLS), a maximum total of 10 days'2)Previously, every person taking part in the scheme has been individually issued with a form for the purposes of requesting the transfer of leave to the leave account and the transfer has then had to be done manually by HR Division. To streamline the procedure, unused leave of all those taking part in the saved leave scheme at the closure of the leave-year accounts will henceforth be transferred automatically to the saved leave account on that date. This simplification is in the interest of all parties concerned. This automatic transfer procedure has a number of advantages for participants in the SLS scheme. First, staff members will no longer have to take any administrative steps. Secondly, the new proced...

  5. 48 CFR 48.104-3 - Sharing collateral savings.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Sharing collateral savings... CONTRACT MANAGEMENT VALUE ENGINEERING Policies and Procedures 48.104-3 Sharing collateral savings. (a) The Government shares collateral savings with the contractor, unless the head of the contracting activity has...

  6. 48 CFR 2448.104-3 - Sharing collateral savings.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 6 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 true Sharing collateral savings... DEVELOPMENT CONTRACT MANAGEMENT VALUE ENGINEERING 2448.104-3 Sharing collateral savings. (a) The authority of the HCA to determine that the cost of calculating and tracking collateral savings will exceed the...

  7. Poor Families Striving to Save in Matched Children’s Savings Accounts: Findings from a Randomized Experimental Design in Uganda

    Science.gov (United States)

    Karimli, Leyla; Ssewamala, Fred M.; Neilands, Torsten B.

    2014-01-01

    This study examines participants’ savings in children’s savings accounts (CSAs) set up for AIDS-orphaned children ages 10–15 in Uganda. Using a cluster randomized experimental design, we examine the extent to which families participating in a CSA program report more savings than their counterparts not participating in the program, explore the extent to which families who participate in the CSA program report using formal financial institutions compared with families who do not have a CSA, and consider whether families participating in the CSA program bring new money into the CSA or whether they reshuffle existing household assets. We find that participating in a CSA increased families’ likelihood to report having saved money. However, our results show no intervention effect either on the amount of self-reported savings or on the likelihood of using formal financial institutions. Further research is needed to understand whether use of a CSA helps families generate new wealth. PMID:25525282

  8. Electric energy savings from new technologies. Revision 1

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Harrer, B.J.; Kellogg, M.A.; Lyke, A.J.; Imhoff, K.L.; Fisher, Z.J.

    1986-09-01

    Purpose of the report is to provide information about the electricity-saving potential of new technologies to OCEP that it can use in developing alternative long-term projections of US electricity consumption. Low-, base-, and high-case scenarios of the electricity savings for 10 technologies were prepared. The total projected annual savings for the year 2000 for all 10 technologies were 137 billion kilowatt hours (BkWh), 279 BkWh, and 470 BkWh, respectively, for the three cases. The magnitude of these savings projections can be gauged by comparing them to the Department's reference case projection for the 1985 National Energy Policy Plan. In the Department's reference case, total consumption in 2000 is projected to be 3319 BkWh. Because approximately 75% of the base-case estimate of savings are already incorporated into the reference projection, only 25% of the savings estimated here should be subtracted from the reference projection for analysis purposes.

  9. Energy saving analysis and management modeling based on index decomposition analysis integrated energy saving potential method: Application to complex chemical processes

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Geng, Zhiqiang; Gao, Huachao; Wang, Yanqing; Han, Yongming; Zhu, Qunxiong

    2017-01-01

    Highlights: • The integrated framework that combines IDA with energy-saving potential method is proposed. • Energy saving analysis and management framework of complex chemical processes is obtained. • This proposed method is efficient in energy optimization and carbon emissions of complex chemical processes. - Abstract: Energy saving and management of complex chemical processes play a crucial role in the sustainable development procedure. In order to analyze the effect of the technology, management level, and production structure having on energy efficiency and energy saving potential, this paper proposed a novel integrated framework that combines index decomposition analysis (IDA) with energy saving potential method. The IDA method can obtain the level of energy activity, energy hierarchy and energy intensity effectively based on data-drive to reflect the impact of energy usage. The energy saving potential method can verify the correctness of the improvement direction proposed by the IDA method. Meanwhile, energy efficiency improvement, energy consumption reduction and energy savings can be visually discovered by the proposed framework. The demonstration analysis of ethylene production has verified the practicality of the proposed method. Moreover, we can obtain the corresponding improvement for the ethylene production based on the demonstration analysis. The energy efficiency index and the energy saving potential of these worst months can be increased by 6.7% and 7.4%, respectively. And the carbon emissions can be reduced by 7.4–8.2%.

  10. 12 CFR 583.12 - Multiple savings and loan holding company.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 12 Banks and Banking 5 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Multiple savings and loan holding company. 583... DEFINITIONS FOR REGULATIONS AFFECTING SAVINGS AND LOAN HOLDING COMPANIES § 583.12 Multiple savings and loan holding company. The term multiple savings and loan holding company means any savings and loan holding...

  11. 12 CFR 583.11 - Diversified savings and loan holding company.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 12 Banks and Banking 5 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Diversified savings and loan holding company... DEFINITIONS FOR REGULATIONS AFFECTING SAVINGS AND LOAN HOLDING COMPANIES § 583.11 Diversified savings and loan holding company. The term diversified savings and loan holding company means any savings and loan holding...

  12. Revolving fund for energy saving

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Prebensen, K.

    1993-01-01

    A key issue in Eastern Europe is the adjustment of prices from the former COMECON level to a level conforming with free market conditions. In the case of household heating, this issue involves the removal of government subsidies leading to sharply increasing prices, metering of individual consumption, improving the efficiency of energy production, distribution and use - where savings of 30-50% in each link are technically feasible - thereby providing a potential for a adapting consumption patterns to higher energy prices, provided that funds are available. Currently, investment in commercial heat production and distribution systems have received substantial international support - whereas investment in reduction of demand has been little exploited. The Revolving Fund for Energy Savings in Polish Households is a concept for efficient financing of small-scale projects. It aims at financing, on the level of housing cooperatives, on the basis of a simplified lending and project evaluation procedure, well suited to current Polish conditions or an organizationally and financially weak banking system and little developed technical knowledge in the field of energy saving. A general introduction to the issue is given and technical problems are elaborated. The implementation of Energy Savings in Housing seen from the banking point of view, and a current pilot scheme for financing, are described. (AB)

  13. Advances in Biological Water-saving Research: Challenge and Perspectives

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    Lun Shan; Xiping Deng; Suiqi Zhang

    2006-01-01

    Increasing the efficiency of water use by crops continues to escalate as a topic of concern because drought is a restrictive environmental factor for crop productivity worldwide. Greater yield per unit rainfall is one of the most important challenges in water-saving agriculture. Besides water-saving by irrigation engineering and conservation tillage, a good understanding of factors limiting and/or regulating yield now provides us with an opportunity to identify and then precisely select for physiological and breeding traits that increase the efficiency of water use and drought tolerance under water-limited conditions, biological water-saving is one means of achieving this goat. A definition of biological water-saving measures is proposed which embraces improvements in water-use efficiency (WUE) and drought tolerance, by genetic improvement and physiological regulation. The preponderance of biological water-saving measures is discussed and strategies identified for working within natural resource constraints. The technology and future perspectives of biological water saving could provide not only new water-saving techniques but also a scientific base for application of water-saving irrigation and conservation tillage.

  14. Concepts. Environmental care through energy saving

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Wagner, G.

    1987-04-01

    Energy saving is an important ingredient of a preventive energy policy. It helps to reduce pollutants which are one essential source of damage done to air, water and soil. But even the environmentally damaging side effects of energy production, storage and distribution can be cut down through energy saving.

  15. Mozambican Aggregate Consumption and Domestic Saving ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    It was an unprecedented decade for its break with the previous trend; but so far, the new trend does not correspond to a substantial change in growth strategy to ensure that foreign savings become complementary rather than a substitute for domestic savings. Keywords: consumption, economic growth strategy, domestic ...

  16. As to achieve regulatory action, regulatory approaches

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Cid, R.; Encinas, D.

    2014-01-01

    The achievement of the effectiveness in the performance of a nuclear regulatory body has been a permanent challenge in the recent history of nuclear regulation. In the post-Fukushima era this challenge is even more important. This article addresses the subject from two complementary points of view: the characteristics of an effective regulatory body and the regulatory approaches. This work is based on the most recent studies carried out by the Committee on Nuclear Regulatory Activities, CNRA (OECD/NEA), as well as on the experience of the Consejo de Seguridad Nuclear, CSN, the Spanish regulatory body. Rafael Cid is the representative of CSN in these project: Diego Encinas has participated in the study on regulatory approaches. (Author)

  17. Casual relationship between gross domestic saving and economic ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The empirical study confirmed that a significant relationship between domestic savings and ... and, which ultimately increases the country domestic saving level. ... which increase saving and investment into the country due to its dual effect. ... South Africa (96); South Sudan (1); Sudan (3); Swaziland (3); Tanzania (19); Togo ...

  18. Building Savings and Investments Culture among Nigerians | Imegi ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    It is therefore necessary to build among Nigerians savings and investments culture. A review of extant literature revealed that people save and invest for several reasons among which are to enhance the standard of living, take advantage of rare business opportunities, and meet unforeseen circumstances. Savings can be ...

  19. Water saving through international trade of agricultural products

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Chapagain, Ashok; Hoekstra, Arjen Ysbert; Savenije, H.H.G.

    2006-01-01

    Many nations save domestic water resources by importing water-intensive products and exporting commodities that are less water intensive. National water saving through the import of a product can imply saving water at a global level if the flow is from sites with high to sites with low water

  20. Technical energy savings versus changes in human behaviour

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nørgaard, Jørgen

    1996-01-01

    Energy savings seems to be the most environmentally benign element in an energy policy. The paper is a reflection on the work on saving energy both by improving technology and by adapting human daily behaviour. A simple model is suggested for the energy chain which converts the primary energy all...... the way into human satisfaction via energy services. Results of various analyses and field experiments show saving potentials for electricity of 50 - 80 per cents. Barriers for implementing these technical saving options are discussed. Also the necessity and potentials for changing behavioural or life...

  1. A multifunctional energy-saving magnetic field generator

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xiong, Hui; Sun, Wanpeng; Liu, Jinzhen; Shi, Jinhua

    2018-03-01

    To improve the energy utilization of magnetic field generators for biological applications, a multifunctional energy-saving magnetic field generator (ESMFG) is presented. It is capable of producing both an alternating magnetic field (AMF) and a bipolar pulse magnetic field (BPMF) with high energy-saving and energy-reuse rates. Based on a theoretical analysis of an RLC second-order circuit, the energy-saving and energy-reuse rates of both types of magnetic fields can be calculated and are found to have acceptable values. The results of an experimental study using the proposed generator show that for the BPMF, the peak current reaches 130 A and the intensity reaches 70.3 mT. For the AMF, the intensity is 11.0 mT and the RMS current is 20 A. The energy-saving and energy-reuse rates for the AMF generator are 61.3% and 63.5%, respectively, while for the BPMF generator, the energy-saving rate is 33.6%. Thus, the proposed ESMFG has excellent potential for use in biomedical applications.

  2. Causal Links among Saving, Investment and Growth and ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The relationship between saving, investment and GDP still remains an empirical issue. In their aspiration to catch up the rest of the world, developing countries provides a special place on this matter. This paper tried to investigate the main determinants of saving and the connection among saving, investment and GDP in the ...

  3. Canada Education Savings Program: Annual Statistical Review--2009

    Science.gov (United States)

    Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, 2009

    2009-01-01

    The Canada Education Savings Program is an initiative of the Government of Canada. As part of the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development, the program administers the Canada Education Savings Grant and the Canada Learning Bond. These two initiatives help Canadian families save for a child's post-secondary education in Registered…

  4. 10 CFR 436.20 - Net savings.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... ENERGY ENERGY CONSERVATION FEDERAL ENERGY MANAGEMENT AND PLANNING PROGRAMS Methodology and Procedures for Life Cycle Cost Analyses § 436.20 Net savings. For a retrofit project, net savings may be found by subtracting life cycle costs based on the proposed project from life cycle costs based on not having it. For a...

  5. Creation of Carbon Credits by Water Saving

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yasutoshi Shimizu

    2012-07-01

    Full Text Available Until now, as a way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from Japanese homes, the emphasis has been on reduction of energy consumption for air-conditioning and lighting. In recent years, there has been progress in CO2 emission reduction through research into the water-saving performance of bathroom fixtures such as toilets and showers. Simulations have shown that CO2 emissions associated with water consumption in Japanese homes can be reduced by 25% (1% of Japan’s total CO2 emissions by 2020 through the adoption of the use of water-saving fixtures. In response to this finding, a program to promote the replacement of current fixtures with water-saving toilet bowls and thermally insulated bathtubs has been added to the Government of Japan’s energy-saving policy. Furthermore, CO2 emission reduction through widespread use of water-saving fixtures has been adopted by the domestic credit system promoted by the Government of Japan as a way of achieving CO2 emission-reduction targets; application of this credit system has also begun. As part of a bilateral offset credit mechanism promoted by the Government of Japan, research to evaluate the CO2 reduction potential of the adoption of water-saving fixtures has been done in the city of Dalian, in China.

  6. Save Energy Now Assessments Results 2008 Detailed Report

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Wright, Anthony L [ORNL; Martin, Michaela A [ORNL; Nimbalkar, Sachin U [ORNL; Quinn, James [U.S. Department of Energy; Glatt, Ms. Sandy [DOE Industrial Technologies Program; Orthwein, Mr. Bill [U.S. Department of Energy

    2010-09-01

    In October 2005, U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Bodman launched his Easy Ways to Save Energy campaign with a promise to provide energy assessments to 200 of the largest U.S. manufacturing plants. DOE's Industrial Technologies Program (ITP) responded to the Secretary's campaign with its Save Energy Now initiative, featuring a new and highly cost-effective form of energy savings assessment. The approach for these assessments drew heavily on the existing resources of ITP's technology delivery component. Over the years, ITP Technology Delivery has worked with industry partners to assemble a suite of respected software tools, proven assessment protocols, training curricula, certified energy experts, and strong partnerships for deployment. The Save Energy Now assessments conducted in calendar year 2006 focused on natural gas savings and targeted many of the nation's largest manufacturing plants - those that consume at least 1 TBtu of energy annually. The 2006 Save Energy Now assessments focused primarily on assessments of steam and process heating systems, which account for an estimated 74% of all natural gas use by U.S. manufacturing plants. Because of the success of the Save Energy Now assessments conducted in 2006 and 2007, the program was expanded and enhanced in two major ways in 2008: (1) a new goal was set to perform at least 260 assessments; and (2) the assessment focus was expanded to include pumping, compressed air, and fan systems in addition to steam and process heating. DOE ITP also has developed software tools to assess energy efficiency improvement opportunities in pumping, compressed air, and fan systems. The Save Energy Now assessments integrate a strong training component designed to teach industrial plant personnel how to use DOE's opportunity assessment software tools. This approach has the advantages of promoting strong buy-in of plant personnel for the assessment and its outcomes and preparing them better to

  7. Cost-saving production technologies and partial ownership

    OpenAIRE

    Juan Carlos Barcena-Ruiz; Norma Olaizola

    2007-01-01

    This work analyzes the incentives to acquire cost-saving production technologies when cross-participation exists at ownership level. We show that cross-participation reduces the incentives to adopt the cost-saving production technology.

  8. Canada Education Savings Program: Annual Statistical Review 2011

    Science.gov (United States)

    Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, 2011

    2011-01-01

    The Canada Education Savings Program has been an initiative of the Government of Canada since 1998. As part of the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development, the program administers the Canada Education Savings Grant and the Canada Learning Bond. These two initiatives help Canadian families save for a child's post-secondary education in…

  9. Canada Education Savings Program: Annual Statistical Review 2012

    Science.gov (United States)

    Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, 2012

    2012-01-01

    The Canada Education Savings Program (CESP) has been an initiative of the Government of Canada since 1998. As part of the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, the program administers the Canada Education Savings Grant (CESG) and the Canada Learning Bond (CLB). These two initiatives help Canadian families save for a child's…

  10. Caustic saving potentile in textile processing mills

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Latif, M.; Rehman, A.; Ghafar, A.; Hafeez, N.M.

    2010-01-01

    The textile processing industry of pakistan has great potential of improvement in resource consumption in various production processes. One major concern is the heavy usage of caustic soda (sodium hydroxide) especially during the mercerization process which incurs a significant cost to a textile processing mill. To reduce the unit fabric production cost and stay competitive, the industry need to minimize the caustic wastage and explore the caustic saving potential. This paper describe the detailed caustic consumption practices and saving potentials in woven textile sector based on the data base of 100 industries. Region wise caustic saving potential is also investigated . Three caustic conservation option including process improvement, reuse and recycling, and caustic recovery plants are discussed. Detailed technical and and financial requirements. saving potentials and paybacks of these options are provided. (author)

  11. Energy saving baking methods. Energibesparende bagemetoder

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Gry, P.

    1988-01-01

    The project ''Energy Saving Baking Methods'', run as part of the Energy Research Project-1984, and has as its aim to investigate potentials for energy saving by employing microwaves in the baking process. The project is a follow-up of the Nordic Industry Fund project which was completed in 1983. Smaller test ovens with IR long waves, warm air convection and microwaves of 2,47 GHz were used. Measurements of heat distribution from all three energy sources have been made. Extensive experiments have been carried out in order to develope baking methods for white loaves which are energy saving, but where the quality of the bread does not undergo any form of deterioration. Tests were made using microwaves alone, and in combination with hot air and IR. A resulting saving 35% baking time was achieved, and a further reduction of baking time can be reached where a greater improvement of energy distribution can take place, especially in the case of microwaves and IR. (AB).

  12. Student saving, does it exist? : A study of students' saving behavior, attitude towards saving and motivation to save.

    OpenAIRE

    Tuvesson, Joakim; Yu, Shiyu

    2011-01-01

    Swedish households are getting deeper in debt and house prices keeps on rising. This is what happened in USA and it was one of the major causes of the recent financial crisis. To avoid a similar crisis in Sweden we think one part of the solution is to make sure that those who are students today and soon will get jobs, buy houses, take loans etcetera have necessary knowledge to do so. Students’ saving is an area that almost completely lacked researchers’ attention, and one goal with this thesi...

  13. Testing statistical hypotheses

    CERN Document Server

    Lehmann, E L

    2005-01-01

    The third edition of Testing Statistical Hypotheses updates and expands upon the classic graduate text, emphasizing optimality theory for hypothesis testing and confidence sets. The principal additions include a rigorous treatment of large sample optimality, together with the requisite tools. In addition, an introduction to the theory of resampling methods such as the bootstrap is developed. The sections on multiple testing and goodness of fit testing are expanded. The text is suitable for Ph.D. students in statistics and includes over 300 new problems out of a total of more than 760. E.L. Lehmann is Professor of Statistics Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the recipient of honorary degrees from the University of Leiden, The Netherlands and the University of Chicago. He is the author of Elements of Large-Sample Theory and (with George Casella) he is also the author of Theory of Point Estimat...

  14. Principles of valuing business travel time savings

    OpenAIRE

    Fowkes, A.S.

    2001-01-01

    OVERVIEW\\ud \\ud There are two approaches to valuing travel time savings to business people. The first is that which has formed the basis of UK policy for about 30 years, and which is set out in Section 2. This takes the value of travel time savings on employer’s business as equal to the gross wage rate plus an allowance for other costs that the employer saves. These might include such things as desk space, computer, tools, uniform, protective clothing, travel expenses. These were investigated...

  15. Financial development and domestic savings in emerging Asian countries

    OpenAIRE

    Yılmaz BAYAR

    2014-01-01

    Saving is one of the important determinants of economic growth. Therefore determinants of saving are indirectly important for a sustainable economic growth. Financial sector has come into prominence as a possible determinant of saving in the globalized financial markets. This study examines the relationship between gross domestic savings and financial development in the emerging Asian countries during the period 1992-2011 by using panel regression. We found that financial de...

  16. Electricity saving in households-A social cognitive approach

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Thogersen, John; Gronhoj, Alice

    2010-01-01

    We propose a conceptual framework for understanding the (lack of) energy saving efforts of private households based on Bandura's (1986) social cognitive theory. Results from applying this framework on a sample of Danish private electricity consumers are presented and it is concluded (a) that households' electricity consumption depends on both structural and motivational factors, (b) that their electricity saving effort depends on the strength of their internalized norms or self-expectations and on self-efficacy related factors, and (c) that there are predictable patterns of interaction among household members that influence their electricity consumption. The results suggest two approaches to promote electricity saving in households: (1) to change the socio-structural environment to be more facilitating for energy saving and empower householders to be more effective in their striving towards this goal through improved feedback about their household's electricity consumption and (2) social norms marketing, communicating social expectations and others' successful electricity saving achievements. - Research highlights: →A combination of survey and meter reading data is used to analyze energy saving in households. →Up to two adults from each household answered the questionnaire. →Dyadic data analysis is used to investigate interactions between household members. →Both structural and motivational factors account for households' electricity consumption. →Electricity saving efforts depends on internalized norms, self-efficacy and social interaction.

  17. Electricity saving in households-A social cognitive approach

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Thogersen, John, E-mail: jbt@asb.d [Aarhus University, School of Business and Social Sciences, Department of Marketing, Haslegaardsvej 10, DK-8210 Aarhus (Denmark); Gronhoj, Alice, E-mail: alg@asb.d [Aarhus University, School of Business and Social Sciences, Department of Marketing, Haslegaardsvej 10, DK-8210 Aarhus (Denmark)

    2010-12-15

    We propose a conceptual framework for understanding the (lack of) energy saving efforts of private households based on Bandura's (1986) social cognitive theory. Results from applying this framework on a sample of Danish private electricity consumers are presented and it is concluded (a) that households' electricity consumption depends on both structural and motivational factors, (b) that their electricity saving effort depends on the strength of their internalized norms or self-expectations and on self-efficacy related factors, and (c) that there are predictable patterns of interaction among household members that influence their electricity consumption. The results suggest two approaches to promote electricity saving in households: (1) to change the socio-structural environment to be more facilitating for energy saving and empower householders to be more effective in their striving towards this goal through improved feedback about their household's electricity consumption and (2) social norms marketing, communicating social expectations and others' successful electricity saving achievements. - Research highlights: {yields}A combination of survey and meter reading data is used to analyze energy saving in households. {yields}Up to two adults from each household answered the questionnaire. {yields}Dyadic data analysis is used to investigate interactions between household members. {yields}Both structural and motivational factors account for households' electricity consumption. {yields}Electricity saving efforts depends on internalized norms, self-efficacy and social interaction.

  18. The rise of corporate savings

    OpenAIRE

    Roc Armenter

    2012-01-01

    Over the past few decades, several developed economies have experienced large changes in how much households and firms save. In fact, a sharp increase in firms’ savings behavior has changed the net position of the (nonfinancial) corporate sector vis-à-vis the rest of the economy. ; Why have firms in the business of producing goods or services become lenders? This is quite at odds with traditional models of corporate finance, which suggest that firms issue debt and equity to fund their operati...

  19. Energy Savings from Industrial Water Reductions

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Rao, Prakash; McKane, Aimee; de Fontaine, Andre

    2015-08-03

    Although it is widely recognized that reducing freshwater consumption is of critical importance, generating interest in industrial water reduction programs can be hindered for a variety of reasons. These include the low cost of water, greater focus on water use in other sectors such as the agriculture and residential sectors, high levels of unbilled and/or unregulated self-supplied water use in industry, and lack of water metering and tracking capabilities at industrial facilities. However, there are many additional components to the resource savings associated with reducing site water use beyond the water savings alone, such as reductions in energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, treatment chemicals, and impact on the local watershed. Understanding and quantifying these additional resource savings can expand the community of businesses, NGOs, government agencies, and researchers with a vested interest in water reduction. This paper will develop a methodology for evaluating the embedded energy consumption associated with water use at an industrial facility. The methodology developed will use available data and references to evaluate the energy consumption associated with water supply and wastewater treatment outside of a facility’s fence line for various water sources. It will also include a framework for evaluating the energy consumption associated with water use within a facility’s fence line. The methodology will develop a more complete picture of the total resource savings associated with water reduction efforts and allow industrial water reduction programs to assess the energy and CO2 savings associated with their efforts.

  20. User behaviour impact on energy savings potential

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Rose, Jørgen

    2014-01-01

    and the residents' behaviour and if these defaults do not reflect actual circumstances, it can result in non-realisation of expected energy savings. Furthermore, a risk also exists that residents' behaviour change after the energy upgrading, e.g. to obtain improved comfort than what was possible before......, 3) Domestic hot water consumption and 4) Air change rate. Based on the analysis, a methodology is established that can be used to make more realistic and accurate predictions of expected energy savings associated with energy upgrading taking into account user behaviour....... the upgrading and this could lead to further discrepancies between the calculated and the actual energy savings. This paper presents an analysis on how residents’ behaviour and the use of standard assumptions may influence expected energy savings. The analysis is performed on two typical single-family houses...

  1. Energy saving and consumption reducing evaluation of thermal power plant

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tan, Xiu; Han, Miaomiao

    2018-03-01

    At present, energy saving and consumption reduction require energy saving and consumption reduction measures for thermal power plant, establishing an evaluation system for energy conservation and consumption reduction is instructive for the whole energy saving work of thermal power plant. By analysing the existing evaluation system of energy conservation and consumption reduction, this paper points out that in addition to the technical indicators of power plant, market activities should also be introduced in the evaluation of energy saving and consumption reduction in power plant. Ttherefore, a new evaluation index of energy saving and consumption reduction is set up and the example power plant is calculated in this paper. Rresults show that after introducing the new evaluation index of energy saving and consumption reduction, the energy saving effect of the power plant can be judged more comprehensively, so as to better guide the work of energy saving and consumption reduction in power plant.

  2. The modern water-saving agricultural technology: Progress and focus

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    GREGORY

    2010-09-13

    Sep 13, 2010 ... DEVELOPING TENDENCY OF MODERN WATER-. SAVING AGRICULTURAL TECHNOLOGY. Excavation of the own water-saving potential using biotechnology. The biological water-saving technology that uses crop physiology control and modern breeding techniques to increase production and water ...

  3. Measured energy savings from using night temperature setback

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Szydlowski, R.F.; Wrench, L.E.; O'Neill, P.J.

    1993-01-01

    The measured energy savings resulting from using night temperature setback in typical light-construction wooden office buildings was determined. Researchers installed monitoring equipment in a six-building sample of two-story wooden buildings at Fort Devens, Massachusetts. Data obtained during both single-setting and night-setback operating modes were used to develop models of each building's heat consumption as a function of the difference between inside and outside temperature. These models were used to estimate seasonal savings that could be obtained from the use of night-setback thermostat control. The measured savings in heating energy from using night temperature setback for the six Fort Devens buildings ranged from 14% to 25%; the mean savings was 19.2%. Based on an energy cost of $0.65/therm of natural gas, the estimated average cost savings of using automatic setback thermostats in these buildings is $780 per year per building

  4. Diamond-set drill bits: savings achieved at Cominak

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Artru, P.; Bibert, F.X.; Croisat, G.

    1988-01-01

    Rotary instead of percussion adoption of drilling in the underground Akouta mine (Niger) has been the cause of important savings in blasting and bolting operations. Other savings affect capital expenditures and indirect savings are coming from better working conditions. For blast holes drilling and bolting, spare parts expenditures are 2.4 times lower with rotary drilling. Drilling rods are cheaper and last longer with rotary drilling. A rotary equipped Jumbos fleet is cheaper to maintain and is 18% more available, due to less mechanical and other breakdowns. Total savings for the mine owner and operator Cominak reach more than a billion of CFA francs [fr

  5. Testing statistical hypotheses of equivalence

    CERN Document Server

    Wellek, Stefan

    2010-01-01

    Equivalence testing has grown significantly in importance over the last two decades, especially as its relevance to a variety of applications has become understood. Yet published work on the general methodology remains scattered in specialists' journals, and for the most part, it focuses on the relatively narrow topic of bioequivalence assessment.With a far broader perspective, Testing Statistical Hypotheses of Equivalence provides the first comprehensive treatment of statistical equivalence testing. The author addresses a spectrum of specific, two-sided equivalence testing problems, from the

  6. Mirror bootstrap method for testing hypotheses of one mean

    OpenAIRE

    Varvak, Anna

    2012-01-01

    The general philosophy for bootstrap or permutation methods for testing hypotheses is to simulate the variation of the test statistic by generating the sampling distribution which assumes both that the null hypothesis is true, and that the data in the sample is somehow representative of the population. This philosophy is inapplicable for testing hypotheses for a single parameter like the population mean, since the two assumptions are contradictory (e.g., how can we assume both that the mean o...

  7. Potential for the Use of Energy Savings Performance Contracts to Reduce Energy Consumption and Provide Energy and Cost Savings in Non-Building Applications

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Williams, Charles; Green, Andrew S.; Dahle, Douglas; Barnett, John; Butler, Pat; Kerner, David

    2013-08-01

    The findings of this study indicate that potential exists in non-building applications to save energy and costs. This potential could save billions of federal dollars, reduce reliance on fossil fuels, increase energy independence and security, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Federal Government has nearly twenty years of experience with achieving similar energy cost reductions, and letting the energy costs savings pay for themselves, by applying energy savings performance contracts (ESPC) inits buildings. Currently, the application of ESPCs is limited by statute to federal buildings. This study indicates that ESPCs can be a compatible and effective contracting tool for achieving savings in non-building applications.

  8. Implementation of the Save and Restoration application for KOMAC operation

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Kim, Jae-Ha; Song, Young-Gi; Kwon, Hyeok-Jung; Cho, Yong-Sub [Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, Gyeongju (Korea, Republic of)

    2016-10-15

    KOMAC has been operating a 100 MeV proton linear Accelerator. There are about 10,000 PVs for operating the 100 MeV proton linac. It is important to archive the operating parameters for operating beam lines and machine study. The parameters are reported manually and with screenshot. There not fixed reporting type so it is difficult to compare archived data. To improve and compensate the reporting system, a Save and Restoration application, which is based on JAVA has been implemented and connected with KOMAC Control system based on EPICS with JCA library. The operating data are saved in Save and Restoration Server in file type, and are restored to the required values using the saved files. This paper presents Implementation of the Save and Restoration application and its function. The group list is shown in restore page using reload button. The saved value of the PVs in group is shown as selecting a group which clients require and current values are appeared beside the restore value table to compare with saved data. The set restore button input the values in restore value table to each PV. The Save and Restore application save and restore the value of the PVs that clients require. The application is installed in client PC but data are archived in save and restore server in file format.

  9. Acquiring energy savings in manufactured housing

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Davey, D.

    1993-01-01

    In 1991, the Northwest utilities faced a complex situation. They needed new sources of electrical power to avoid future deficits. A significant block of energy savings was available in the manufactured housing sector in the form of energy savings from increased insulation to new manufactured homes. The manufacturers were interested in saving the electricity in the homes, but would only deal with the utility sector as a whole. Half of the homes targeted were sited in investor-owned utility (IOU) service territories, and half in the public sector made up of utilities that purchased some or all of their electricity from the Bonneville Power Administration. Utilities agreed to acquire energy from manufacturers In the form of thermal efficiency measures specified by the Bonneville Power Administration. The program that resulted from over one year of negotiations was called the Manufactured Housing Acquisition Program, or MAP. Manufacturers, the utilities, State Energy Offices, the Northwest Power Planning Council and Bonneville all worked closely and with tenacity to build the program that went into effect on April 1, 1992, and should save the region between 7 and 9 megawatts, enough energy to supply 11,000 homes in the Northwest

  10. 76 FR 20459 - Savings and Loan Holding Company Application

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-04-12

    ... DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY Office of Thrift Supervision Savings and Loan Holding Company... concerning the following information collection. Title of Proposal: Savings and Loan Holding Company... officer of a savings and loan holding company, or any individual who owns, controls, or holds with power...

  11. 75 FR 27863 - Savings Bank of Maine, MHC and Savings Bank of Maine, Gardiner, Maine; Approval of Conversion...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-05-18

    ... DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY Office of Thrift Supervision [AC-38: OTS Nos. 06947 and H 4709] Savings Bank of Maine, MHC and Savings Bank of Maine, Gardiner, Maine; Approval of Conversion Application Notice is hereby given that on May 7, 2010, the Office of Thrift Supervision approved the application of...

  12. Electricity saving in households. A social cognitive approach

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Thoegersen, John; Groenhoej, Alice [Aarhus University, School of Business and Social Sciences, Department of Marketing, Haslegaardsvej 10, DK-8210 Aarhus (Denmark)

    2010-12-15

    We propose a conceptual framework for understanding the (lack of) energy saving efforts of private households based on Bandura's (1986) social cognitive theory. Results from applying this framework on a sample of Danish private electricity consumers are presented and it is concluded (a) that households' electricity consumption depends on both structural and motivational factors, (b) that their electricity saving effort depends on the strength of their internalized norms or self-expectations and on self-efficacy related factors, and (c) that there are predictable patterns of interaction among household members that influence their electricity consumption. The results suggest two approaches to promote electricity saving in households: (1) to change the socio-structural environment to be more facilitating for energy saving and empower householders to be more effective in their striving towards this goal through improved feedback about their household's electricity consumption and (2) social norms marketing, communicating social expectations and others' successful electricity saving achievements. (author)

  13. Potential energy savings and thermal comfort

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jensen, Karsten Ingerslev; Rudbeck, Claus Christian; Schultz, Jørgen Munthe

    1996-01-01

    The simulation results on the energy saving potential and influence on indoor thermal comfort by replacement of common windows with aerogel windows as well as commercial low-energy windows are described and analysed.......The simulation results on the energy saving potential and influence on indoor thermal comfort by replacement of common windows with aerogel windows as well as commercial low-energy windows are described and analysed....

  14. A simulation study of mutations in the genetic regulatory hierarchy for butterfly eyespot focus determination.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Marcus, Jeffrey M; Evans, Travis M

    2008-09-01

    The color patterns on the wings of butterflies have been an important model system in evolutionary developmental biology. A recent computational model tested genetic regulatory hierarchies hypothesized to underlie the formation of butterfly eyespot foci [Evans, T.M., Marcus, J.M., 2006. A simulation study of the genetic regulatory hierarchy for butterfly eyespot focus determination. Evol. Dev. 8, 273-283]. The computational model demonstrated that one proposed hierarchy was incapable of reproducing the known patterns of gene expression associated with eyespot focus determination in wild-type butterflies, but that two slightly modified alternative hierarchies were capable of reproducing all of the known gene expressions patterns. Here we extend the computational models previously implemented in Delphi 2.0 to two mutants derived from the squinting bush brown butterfly (Bicyclus anynana). These two mutants, comet and Cyclops, have aberrantly shaped eyespot foci that are produced by different mechanisms. The comet mutation appears to produce a modified interaction between the wing margin and the eyespot focus that results in a series of comet-shaped eyespot foci. The Cyclops mutation causes the failure of wing vein formation between two adjacent wing-cells and the fusion of two adjacent eyespot foci to form a single large elongated focus in their place. The computational approach to modeling pattern formation in these mutants allows us to make predictions about patterns of gene expression, which are largely unstudied in butterfly mutants. It also suggests a critical experiment that will allow us to distinguish between two hypothesized genetic regulatory hierarchies that may underlie all butterfly eyespot foci.

  15. 76 FR 35085 - Savings and Loan Holding Company Application

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-06-15

    ... DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY Office of Thrift Supervision Savings and Loan Holding Company... Proposal: Savings Loan Holding Company Application. OMB Number: 1550-0015. Form Numbers: H-(e). Description... that no company, or any director or officer of a savings and loan holding company, or any individual...

  16. The EU must triple its energy saving policy effect

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Wesselink, B.; Eichhammer, W.; Harmsen, R.

    2010-01-01

    The impact of EU energy savings policy must triple to achieve the bloc’s 2020 energy savings goal. But such efforts could get a much better foundation if European leaders set a binding energy consumption target, rather than the current indicative savings target. The evidence for such

  17. Invisible costs, visible savings.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lefever, G

    1999-08-01

    By identifying hidden inventory costs, nurse managers can save money for the organization. Some measures include tracking and standardizing supplies, accurately evaluating patients' needs, and making informed purchasing decisions.

  18. The High Cost of Saving Energy Dollars.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rose, Patricia

    1985-01-01

    In alternative financing a private company provides the capital and expertise for improving school energy efficiency. Savings are split between the school system and the company. Options for municipal leasing, cost sharing, and shared savings are explained along with financial, procedural, and legal considerations. (MLF)

  19. HOUSEHOLD SAVINGS AS A SOURCE OF INVESTMENT RESOURCES IN UKRAINE

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    E. Nosova

    2015-03-01

    Full Text Available The approaches of scientists in definition of the household savings, the motives of their creation and the role they perform are identified; the role of household savings in the economy is described; the importance of household saving transformation from unorganized to organized forms is analyzed; the size of saving in financial and nonfinancial forms, its dynamics and structure are characterized; comparison between household savings and main macroeconomic indicators is conducted; ways of investment of households savings are discussed; the dynamics of deposits in banks and credit unions, the participation of households in collective investment schemes (private and corporate investment funds is characterized; the dynamics of household deposits in national and foreign currencies is shown; the dynamics of nominal value of investment fund’s securities, that have been placed among resident individuals are characterized; the dynamics of deposit accounts and the number of credit unions members are described; the comparative characteristics of different ways to invest money is given; the reasons of unorganized savings existence are marked; barriers to convert savings into investments and the ways of overcoming them are identified.

  20. Who's in the business of saving lives?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee Chang, Pepe

    2006-10-01

    There are individuals, including children, dying needlessly in poverty-stricken third world countries. Many of these deaths could be prevented if pharmaceutical companies provided the drugs needed to save their lives. Some believe that because pharmaceutical companies have the power to save lives, and because they can do so with little effort, they have a special obligation. I argue that there is no distinction, with respect to obligations and responsibilities, between pharmaceutical companies and other types of companies. As a result, to hold pharmaceutical companies especially responsible for saving lives in third world countries is unjustified.

  1. Must losing taxes on saving be harmful?

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Huizinga, Harry; Nielsen, Søren Bo

    2004-01-01

    on account of international tax evasion mayprevent the overall saving-investment tax wedge from becoming too high, and hencemay be beneficial for moderate preferences for public goods. A world with 'high-spending' governments, in contrast, is made worse off by the loss of saving taxes,and hence stands...... are financed by taxes on savingand investment. There is international cross-ownership of firms, and countries areassumed to be unable to tax away pure profits. Countries then face an incentiveto impose a rather high investment tax also borne by foreigners. In this setting,the loss of the saving tax instrument...

  2. Public-opinion poll on energy saving

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1982-01-01

    A public-opinion poll was carried out on energy saving from November 26 to December 2, 1981, across the country. The number of persons participated in the survey was 5,000, whose age was 20 and above. The recovery ratio was 4,007 persons (80.1 %). The results of the survey and also the question-answer form are given with respective percentages. The questions were in the following three categories: (1) cognizance of energy saving - space-heating temperature, energy saving conscience use of private cars, purchase of highenergy consumption appliances; (2) energy for future - energy consumption, energy consumption trend, new types of energy, main sources of power generation, nuclear power in the overall electric power, apprehension toward nuclear power plants, safety measures in nuclear power plants; (3) governmental energy policy measures. (J.P.N.)

  3. A CLS-based survivable and energy-saving WDM-PON architecture

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhu, Min; Zhong, Wen-De; Zhang, Zhenrong; Luan, Feng

    2013-11-01

    We propose and demonstrate an improved survivable and energy-saving WDM-PON with colorless ONUs. It incorporates both energy-saving and self-healing operations. A simple effective energy-saving scheme is proposed by including an energy-saving control unit in the OLT and a control unit at each ONU. The energy-saving scheme realizes both dozing and sleep (offline) modes, which greatly improves the energy-saving efficiency for WDM-PONs. An intelligent protection switching scheme is designed in the OLT, which can distinguish if an ONU is in dozing/sleep (offline) state or a fiber is faulty. Moreover, by monitoring the optical power of each channel on both working and protection paths, the OLT can know the connection status of every fiber path, thus facilitating an effective protection switching and a faster failure recovery. The improved WDM-PON architecture not only significantly reduces energy consumption, but also performs self-healing operation in practical operation scenarios. The scheme feasibility is experimentally verified with 10 Gbit/s downstream and 1.25 Gbit/s upstream transmissions. We also examine the energy-saving efficiency of our proposed energy-saving scheme by simulation, which reveals that energy saving mainly arises from the dozing mode, not from the sleep mode when the ONU is in the online state.

  4. Modularity of gene-regulatory networks revealed in sea-star development

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Degnan Bernard M

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Evidence that conserved developmental gene-regulatory networks can change as a unit during deutersostome evolution emerges from a study published in BMC Biology. This shows that genes consistently expressed in anterior brain patterning in hemichordates and chordates are expressed in a similar spatial pattern in another deuterostome, an asteroid echinoderm (sea star, but in a completely different developmental context (the animal-vegetal axis. This observation has implications for hypotheses on the type of development present in the deuterostome common ancestor. See research article: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7007/8/143/abstract

  5. Valuation of Travel Time Savings in Viewpoint of WTA

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shao, Chang-qiao; Liu, Yang; Liu, Xiao-ming

    2014-01-01

    In order to investigate the issues in measurement of value of travel time savings (VTTS), the willingness-to-accept (WTA) for the private car owner is studied by using surveyed data. It is convincing that trip purpose, trip length, time savings, cost savings, income, and allowance from employee have effects on the WTA. Moreover, influences of these variables are not the same for different trip purposes. For commuting trips, effects of income and allowance from employee are significant while time savings and cost savings are dominated for leisure and shopping trips. It is also found that WTA is much higher than expected which implies that there are a group of drivers who are not prone to switching to other trip modes other than passenger car. PMID:25530751

  6. Valuation of travel time savings in viewpoint of WTA.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shao, Chang-Qiao; Liu, Yang; Liu, Xiao-Ming

    2014-01-01

    In order to investigate the issues in measurement of value of travel time savings (VTTS), the willingness-to-accept (WTA) for the private car owner is studied by using surveyed data. It is convincing that trip purpose, trip length, time savings, cost savings, income, and allowance from employee have effects on the WTA. Moreover, influences of these variables are not the same for different trip purposes. For commuting trips, effects of income and allowance from employee are significant while time savings and cost savings are dominated for leisure and shopping trips. It is also found that WTA is much higher than expected which implies that there are a group of drivers who are not prone to switching to other trip modes other than passenger car.

  7. A Simulation Study of Mutations in the Genetic Regulatory Hierarchy for Butterfly Eyespot Focus Determination

    OpenAIRE

    Marcus, Jeffrey M.; Evans, Travis M.

    2008-01-01

    The color patterns on the wings of butterflies have been an important model system in evolutionary developmental biology. A recent computational model tested genetic regulatory hierarchies hypothesized to underlie the formation of butterfly eyespot foci (Evans and Marcus, 2006). The computational model demonstrated that one proposed hierarchy was incapable of reproducing the known patterns of gene expression associated with eyespot focus determination in wild-type butterflies, but that two sl...

  8. Preliminary testing of flow-ecology hypotheses developed for the GCP LCC region

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brewer, Shannon K.; Davis, Mary

    2014-01-01

    The Ecological Limits of Hydrological Alteration (ELOHA) framework calls for the development of flow-ecology hypotheses to support protection of the flow regime from ecologically harmful alteration due to human activities. As part of a larger instream flow project for the Gulf Coast Prairie Landscape Conservation Cooperative (GCP LCC), regional flow-ecology hypotheses were developed for fish, mussels, birds, and riparian vegetation (Davis and Brewer 20141). The objective of this study was to assess the usefulness of existing ecological and hydrological data to test these hypotheses or others that may be developed in the future. Several databases related to biological collections and hydrologic data from Oklahoma, Texas, and Louisiana were compiled. State fish-community data from Oklahoma and Louisiana were summarized and paired with existing USGS gage data having at least a 40-year period of record that could be separated into reference and current conditions for comparison. The objective of this study was not to conduct exhaustive analyses of these data, the hypotheses, or analyses interpretation, but rather to use these data to determine if existing data were adequate to statistically test the regional flow-ecology hypotheses. The regional flow-ecology hypotheses were developed for the GCP LCC by a committee chaired by Shannon Brewer and Mary Davis (Davis and Brewer 2014). Existing data were useful for informing the hypotheses and suggest support for some hypotheses, but also highlight the need for additional testing and development as some results contradicted hypotheses. Results presented here suggest existing data are adequate to support some flow-ecology hypotheses; however, lack of sampling effort reported with the fish collections and the need for ecoregion-specific analyses suggest more data would be beneficial to analyses in some ecoregions. Additional fish sampling data from Texas and Louisiana will be available for future analyses and may ameliorate

  9. Recording and Audit of Resource Saving Innovations at Modern Industrial Companies

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    I. M.

    2017-05-01

    Full Text Available Resource saving and energy saving are essential components of “energy security” problem in all the countries, which raises the importance of analysis and revision of approaches to organization of recording and audit of resource saving innovations at industrial companies. The article’s objective is to study organization of recording and audit of resource saving technologies at industrial companies. A review of resource saving purposes and methods is given. For accounting purposes, innovations in resource saving are recorded now as intangible assets. Recording of resource saving innovations and technologies at industrial companies is confined to recording of transactions on creation or acquisition of patent rights objects and intellectual property objects. The author’s approach to organization of audit by the conformity of resource saving innovations with M. Porter’s test is proposed. Data showing success story of a Ukrainian company manufacturing polyurethane foam sealant PENADO in the aerosol dispenser is used to confirm that Ukraine does have potentials to introduce and utilize resource saving technologies, including energy saving ones. The proposed model for recording and audit of resource saving innovations should be used in strategic planning of resource saving innovations at the companies incorporated in industrial groups or holdings. Using this model, a company can reveal and assess the mismatch between amounts of resources that can be allocated in innovation and real capacities for introducing innovative resource saving technologies, and factors having the strongest impact on recourse saving innovations at companies incorporated in one financial and industrial group or holding. The proposed model accounts for the specific operative conditions in holdings and tough conditions for business operation of industrial companies in Ukraine.

  10. Predicting gene regulatory networks of soybean nodulation from RNA-Seq transcriptome data.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhu, Mingzhu; Dahmen, Jeremy L; Stacey, Gary; Cheng, Jianlin

    2013-09-22

    High-throughput RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) is a revolutionary technique to study the transcriptome of a cell under various conditions at a systems level. Despite the wide application of RNA-Seq techniques to generate experimental data in the last few years, few computational methods are available to analyze this huge amount of transcription data. The computational methods for constructing gene regulatory networks from RNA-Seq expression data of hundreds or even thousands of genes are particularly lacking and urgently needed. We developed an automated bioinformatics method to predict gene regulatory networks from the quantitative expression values of differentially expressed genes based on RNA-Seq transcriptome data of a cell in different stages and conditions, integrating transcriptional, genomic and gene function data. We applied the method to the RNA-Seq transcriptome data generated for soybean root hair cells in three different development stages of nodulation after rhizobium infection. The method predicted a soybean nodulation-related gene regulatory network consisting of 10 regulatory modules common for all three stages, and 24, 49 and 70 modules separately for the first, second and third stage, each containing both a group of co-expressed genes and several transcription factors collaboratively controlling their expression under different conditions. 8 of 10 common regulatory modules were validated by at least two kinds of validations, such as independent DNA binding motif analysis, gene function enrichment test, and previous experimental data in the literature. We developed a computational method to reliably reconstruct gene regulatory networks from RNA-Seq transcriptome data. The method can generate valuable hypotheses for interpreting biological data and designing biological experiments such as ChIP-Seq, RNA interference, and yeast two hybrid experiments.

  11. Cross-Country Private Saving Heterogeneity and Culture

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    de Castro Campos, M.; Kool, C.J.M.; Muysken, J.

    2013-01-01

    Motivated by the dominant role of cross-country heterogeneity in private saving in the creation of Eurozone imbalances over the past decade, we empirically investigate the determinants of private saving for a sample of 30 OECD countries over the period 1990-2010. In addition to standard

  12. Rules of Thumb in Life-Cycle Saving Decisions

    OpenAIRE

    Winter, Joachim; Schlafmann, Kathrin; Rodepeter, Ralf

    2011-01-01

    We analyse life-cycle saving decisions when households use simple heuristics, or rules of thumb, rather than solve the underlying intertemporal optimization problem. We simulate life-cycle saving decisions using three simple rules and compute utility losses relative to the solution of the optimization problem. Our simulations suggest that utility losses induced by following simple decision rules are relatively low. Moreover, the two main saving motives re ected by the canonical life-cyc...

  13. Liquidity in Retirement Savings Systems: An International Comparison

    OpenAIRE

    Beshears, John Leonard; Choi, James J.; Hurwitz, Joshua Bayard; Laibson, David I.; Madrian, Brigitte

    2015-01-01

    What is the socially optimal level of liquidity in a retirement savings system? Liquid retirement savings are desirable because liquidity enables agents to flexibly respond to pre-retirement events that raise the marginal utility of consumption. On the other hand, pre-retirement liquidity is undesirable when it leads to under-saving arising from, for example, planning mistakes or self-control problems. This paper compares the liquidity that six developed economies have built into their employ...

  14. Estimates of Savings Achievable from Irrigation Controller

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Williams, Alison; Fuchs, Heidi; Whitehead, Camilla Dunham

    2014-03-28

    This paper performs a literature review and meta-analysis of water savings from several types of advanced irrigation controllers: rain sensors (RS), weather-based irrigation controllers (WBIC), and soil moisture sensors (SMS).The purpose of this work is to derive average water savings per controller type, based to the extent possible on all available data. After a preliminary data scrubbing, we utilized a series of analytical filters to develop our best estimate of average savings. We applied filters to remove data that might bias the sample such as data self-reported by manufacturers, data resulting from studies focusing on high-water users, or data presented in a non-comparable format such as based on total household water use instead of outdoor water use. Because the resulting number of studies was too small to be statistically significant when broken down by controller type, this paper represents a survey and synthesis of available data rather than a definitive statement regarding whether the estimated water savings are representative.

  15. Long-run savings and investment strategy optimization.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gerrard, Russell; Guillén, Montserrat; Nielsen, Jens Perch; Pérez-Marín, Ana M

    2014-01-01

    We focus on automatic strategies to optimize life cycle savings and investment. Classical optimal savings theory establishes that, given the level of risk aversion, a saver would keep the same relative amount invested in risky assets at any given time. We show that, when optimizing lifecycle investment, performance and risk assessment have to take into account the investor's risk aversion and the maximum amount the investor could lose, simultaneously. When risk aversion and maximum possible loss are considered jointly, an optimal savings strategy is obtained, which follows from constant rather than relative absolute risk aversion. This result is fundamental to prove that if risk aversion and the maximum possible loss are both high, then holding a constant amount invested in the risky asset is optimal for a standard lifetime saving/pension process and outperforms some other simple strategies. Performance comparisons are based on downside risk-adjusted equivalence that is used in our illustration.

  16. Long-Run Savings and Investment Strategy Optimization

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Russell Gerrard

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available We focus on automatic strategies to optimize life cycle savings and investment. Classical optimal savings theory establishes that, given the level of risk aversion, a saver would keep the same relative amount invested in risky assets at any given time. We show that, when optimizing lifecycle investment, performance and risk assessment have to take into account the investor’s risk aversion and the maximum amount the investor could lose, simultaneously. When risk aversion and maximum possible loss are considered jointly, an optimal savings strategy is obtained, which follows from constant rather than relative absolute risk aversion. This result is fundamental to prove that if risk aversion and the maximum possible loss are both high, then holding a constant amount invested in the risky asset is optimal for a standard lifetime saving/pension process and outperforms some other simple strategies. Performance comparisons are based on downside risk-adjusted equivalence that is used in our illustration.

  17. Reported Energy and Cost Savings from the DOE ESPC Program: FY 2014

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Slattery, Bob S. [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

    2015-03-01

    The objective of this work was to determine the realization rate of energy and cost savings from the Department of Energy’s Energy Savings Performance Contract (ESPC) program based on information reported by the energy services companies (ESCOs) that are carrying out ESPC projects at federal sites. Information was extracted from 156 Measurement and Verification (M&V) reports to determine reported, estimated, and guaranteed cost savings and reported and estimated energy savings for the previous contract year. Because the quality of the reports varied, it was not possible to determine all of these parameters for each project. For all 156 projects, there was sufficient information to compare estimated, reported, and guaranteed cost savings. For this group, the total estimated cost savings for the reporting periods addressed were $210.6 million, total reported cost savings were $215.1 million, and total guaranteed cost savings were $204.5 million. This means that on average: ESPC contractors guaranteed 97% of the estimated cost savings; projects reported achieving 102% of the estimated cost savings; and projects reported achieving 105% of the guaranteed cost savings. For 155 of the projects examined, there was sufficient information to compare estimated and reported energy savings. On the basis of site energy, estimated savings for those projects for the previous year totaled 11.938 million MMBtu, and reported savings were 12.138 million MMBtu, 101.7% of the estimated energy savings. On the basis of source energy, total estimated energy savings for the 155 projects were 19.052 million MMBtu, and reported saving were 19.516 million MMBtu, 102.4% of the estimated energy savings.

  18. Assessment of regulatory effectiveness. Peer discussions on regulatory practices

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1999-09-01

    This report arises from the seventh series of peer discussions on regulatory practices entitled 'Assessment of Regulatory Effectiveness'. The term 'regulatory effectiveness' covers the quality of the work and level of performance of a regulatory body. In this sense, regulatory effectiveness applies to regulatory body activities aimed at preventing safety degradation and ensuring that an acceptable level of safety is being maintained by the regulated operating organizations. In addition, regulatory effectiveness encompasses the promotion of safety improvements, the timely and cost effective performance of regulatory functions in a manner which ensures the confidence of the operating organizations, the general public and the government, and striving for continuous improvements to performance. Senior regulators from 22 Member States participated in two peer group discussions during March and May 1999. The discussions were focused on the elements of an effective regulatory body, possible indicators of regulatory effectiveness and its assessment. This report presents the outcome of these meetings and recommendations of good practices identified by senior regulators, which do not necessarily reflect those of the governments of the nominating Member States, the organizations they belong to, or the International Atomic Energy Agency. In order to protect people and the environment from hazards associated with nuclear facilities, the main objective of a nuclear regulatory body is to ensure that a high level of safety in the nuclear activities under its jurisdiction is achieved, maintained and within the control of operating organizations. Even if it is possible to directly judge objective safety levels at nuclear facilities, such safety levels would not provide an exclusive indicator of regulatory effectiveness. The way the regulatory body ensures the safety of workers and the public and the way it discharges its responsibilities also determine its effectiveness. Hence the

  19. Social and psychological barriers to private retirement savings in Hong Kong.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chou, Kee-Lee; Yu, Kar-Ming; Chan, Wai-Sum; Chan, Alfred C M; Lum, Terry Y S; Zhu, Alex Y F

    2014-01-01

    Using a phone survey conducted among Hong Kong workers, we examined the association of institutional, social, and psychological factors with engagement in both private retirement savings and the total amount of savings. Alarmingly, this study demonstrates that approximately 42% of Hong Kong workers do not save privately for their retirement. We found that age, education, number of children, support from spouse and friends, social regulation, perceived financial knowledge, and financial management capacity are associated with engagement in private retirement savings. Among those who saved, age, education, perceived financial knowledge, and financial management capacity are related to the amount of savings. Measures that could increase the social support for retirement savings as well as enhance their financial knowledge and management ability should be developed and implemented so that more workers engage in private retirement savings. A promising policy option for the Hong Kong government is to offer a tax incentive to promote additional savings for old-age income protection.

  20. Saving in Childhood and Adolescence: Insights from Developmental Psychology

    Science.gov (United States)

    Otto, Annette

    2013-01-01

    This paper addresses variables related to child and adolescent saving and explains the development of skills and behaviors that facilitate saving from an economic socialization perspective. References are made to the differences between the economic world of children, adolescents, and adults as well as to existing theories of saving. Children's…

  1. Saving and Habit Formation : Evidence from Dutch Panel Data

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Alessie, R.J.M.; Teppa, F.

    2002-01-01

    This paper focuses on the role of habit formation in individual preferences over consumption and saving.We closely relate to Alessie and Lusardi's (1997) model as we estimate a model which is based on their closed-form solution, where saving is expressed as a function of lagged saving and other

  2. Risk transfer via energy savings insurance

    OpenAIRE

    Mills, Evan

    2001-01-01

    Among the key barriers to investment in energy efficiency improvements are uncertainties about attaining projected energy savings and apprehension about potential disputes over these savings. The fields of energy management and risk management are thus intertwined. While many technical methods have emerged to manage performance risks (e.g. building commissioning), financial risk transfer techniques are less developed in the energy management arena than in other more mature segments of t...

  3. Saving doses by outage planning strategy and architectural arrangements

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wahlstroem, B.

    1993-01-01

    All radiation doses come out as a result of dose rate and exposure time, and the main part of the occupational exposure is caused during outages. While every reasonable attempt should be made to lower the dose rates, the other factor, the exposure time, may not be forgotten. The paper presents possible ways of saving man-hours in the controlled zone by outage planning strategy. And every saved man-hour means a saved radiation dose. At Loviisa NPS also some special architectural arrangements contribute to shortening the outage time, thus saving doses

  4. Saving Energy. Managing School Facilities, Guide 3.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Department for Education and Employment, London (England). Architects and Building Branch.

    This guide offers information on how schools can implement an energy saving action plan to reduce their energy costs. Various low-cost energy-saving measures are recommended covering heating levels and heating systems, electricity demand reduction and lighting, ventilation, hot water usage, and swimming pool energy management. Additional…

  5. Evaluation of Extremal Hypotheses as a Criterion to Resolve Channel Indeterminacy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tranmer, A.

    2012-12-01

    Design criteria for river restoration and sustainable development have significantly advanced in recent decades, yet complete deterministic formulations to address channel form and sinuosity still prove elusive. Many hypotheses have been presented to ascertain the dynamic-equilibrium of a stream at both the cross sectional and reach level. These efforts to better understand the functioning of alluvial systems include regime theory, stability theory, perturbation analysis, threshold theory, reference reach comparison, downstream hydraulic geometry, and extremal hypotheses. The latter of these theories, the extremal hypothesis, is based on optimizing one variable or criterion in the alluvial system in order to find closure to the channel design problem. Currently, there is no method to directly compare the various hypotheses at the system scale, understanding of their sensitivity to the various formulae employed or consensus regarding which hypothesis is most appropriate. This study analyzed the various extremal hypotheses in as close to a pristine environment as exists (a remote part of Patagonia, Chile), in order to assess which hypothesis (or collective hypotheses) is most appropriate for channel design. Extremal hypotheses were applied in the longitudinal direction, under the assumption of a space-for-time substitution, to evaluate the geomorphic trends of a river evolving during deglaciation. The space-for-time model assumes the watershed reaches stable, dynamic-equilibrium in its lower meandering reaches and the point of equilibrium extends upstream through its braiding reaches as the watershed adapts to new climatic and environmental conditions. Extremal hypotheses applied in a downstream fashion are then expected to predict chaotic and oversized channel characteristics in the upstream reaches and trend towards a point of equilibrium (minimum/maximum of tested hypothesis). Initial findings indicate that many hypotheses predict similar geometry and sinuosity

  6. Estimating the energy saving potential of telecom operators in China

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Yang, Tian-Jian; Zhang, Yue-Jun; Huang, Jin; Peng, Ruo-Hong

    2013-01-01

    A set of models are employed to estimate the potential of total energy saved of productions and segmented energy saving for telecom operators in China. During the estimation, the total energy saving is divided into that by technology and management, which are derived from technical reform and progress, and management control measures and even marketing respectively, and the estimating methodologies for energy saving potential of each segment are elaborated. Empirical results from China Mobile indicate that, first, the technical advance in communications technology accounts for the largest proportion (70%–80%) of the total energy saved of productions in telecom sector of China. Second, technical reform brings about 20%–30% of the total energy saving. Third, the proportions of energy saving brought by marketing and control measures appear relatively smaller, just less than 3%. Therefore, China's telecom operators should seize the opportunity of the revolution of communications network techniques in recent years to create an advanced network with lower energy consumption

  7. 21 Cost-Saving Measures For The Judiciary

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jessica Vapnek

    2013-02-01

    Full Text Available Courts around the world are increasingly facing budget cuts and funding shortfalls. Budget problems are particularly acute in developing countries, where courts need to increase efficiency and access to justice while also managing resource limitations. International development agencies and donors expect measurable progress to justify continued funding of judicial reform projects. Yet, as rule of law efforts in developing countries improve public perception of courts and streamline court administration, more cases may be filed. Greater use of the courts puts greater strain on court resources, triggering the need to implement cost-saving measures while maintaining effective court administration.This paper outlines 21 measures that courts can implement to reduce costs. Specific examples from developing countries are presented wherever possible, with additional examples drawn from the United States and Europe. Although this paper is intended mainly for audiences in developing countries, the issues facing those courts are similar to issues addressed through court reforms in the United States over the past 50 years. For this reason, examples of cost-saving measures from developed countries such as the United States may be directly applicable or could be used as starting points to spur further cost savings innovation in the developing world.Section I of this paper explains the context for the implementation of judicial cost-saving measures, and raises some issues for reflection. Section II sets out specific judicial cost-saving measures, dividing them into three categories: measures that address court operations; measures directed at staffing and salaries; and measures that relate to court and case management. Section III discusses ways that countries and judiciaries can generate ideas for new and innovative cost-saving mechanisms.

  8. Modelling the impact of social network on energy savings

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Du, Feng; Zhang, Jiangfeng; Li, Hailong; Yan, Jinyue; Galloway, Stuart; Lo, Kwok L.

    2016-01-01

    Highlights: • Energy saving propagation along a social network is modelled. • This model consists of a time evolving weighted directed network. • Network weights and information decay are applied in savings calculation. - Abstract: It is noted that human behaviour changes can have a significant impact on energy consumption, however, qualitative study on such an impact is still very limited, and it is necessary to develop the corresponding mathematical models to describe how much energy savings can be achieved through human engagement. In this paper a mathematical model of human behavioural dynamic interactions on a social network is derived to calculate energy savings. This model consists of a weighted directed network with time evolving information on each node. Energy savings from the whole network is expressed as mathematical expectation from probability theory. This expected energy savings model includes both direct and indirect energy savings of individuals in the network. The savings model is obtained by network weights and modified by the decay of information. Expected energy savings are calculated for cases where individuals in the social network are treated as a single information source or multiple sources. This model is tested on a social network consisting of 40 people. The results show that the strength of relations between individuals is more important to information diffusion than the number of connections individuals have. The expected energy savings of optimally chosen node can be 25.32% more than randomly chosen nodes at the end of the second month for the case of single information source in the network, and 16.96% more than random nodes for the case of multiple information sources. This illustrates that the model presented in this paper can be used to determine which individuals will have the most influence on the social network, which in turn provides a useful guide to identify targeted customers in energy efficiency technology rollout

  9. Social Capital, Network Effects and Savings in Rural Vietnam

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Newman, Carol; Tarp, Finn; Van Den Broeck, Katleen

    social networks in rural Vietnam can play a role in increasing formal savings where knowledge gaps exist. Networks are defined as active membership of women’s unions and the quality of networks is measured by the level of formal savings observed among group members. We find that membership of high...... quality networks leads to higher levels of saving in formal financial institutions and to higher levels of saving for productive investments as compared with other precautionary or lifecycle motives. Our results suggest that transmitting financial information through formal networks could be effective...... in increasing formal savings at grassroots level. We also conclude that ensuring information disseminated by networks is both accurate and desirable as well as important given that behavioural effects are also found in low-quality networks....

  10. Valuation of Travel Time Savings in Viewpoint of WTA

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chang-qiao Shao

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available In order to investigate the issues in measurement of value of travel time savings (VTTS, the willingness-to-accept (WTA for the private car owner is studied by using surveyed data. It is convincing that trip purpose, trip length, time savings, cost savings, income, and allowance from employee have effects on the WTA. Moreover, influences of these variables are not the same for different trip purposes. For commuting trips, effects of income and allowance from employee are significant while time savings and cost savings are dominated for leisure and shopping trips. It is also found that WTA is much higher than expected which implies that there are a group of drivers who are not prone to switching to other trip modes other than passenger car.

  11. The creation of the SAVE consortium – Saving Asia's Vultures from ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    This article describes the background to this problem, caused mainly by the veterinary drug diclofenac, and the establishment and structure of the SAVE consortium created to help coordinate the necessary conservation response. The lessons learnt in Asia and the working model of such a consortium are presented, which ...

  12. Insurance choice and tax-preferred health savings accounts.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cardon, James H; Showalter, Mark H

    2007-03-01

    We develop an infinite horizon utility maximization model of the interaction between insurance choice and tax-preferred health savings accounts. The model can be used to examine a wide range of policy options, including flexible spending accounts, health savings accounts, and health reimbursement accounts. We also develop a 2-period model to simulate various implications of the model. Key results from the simulation analysis include the following: (1) with no adverse selection, use of unrestricted health savings accounts leads to modest welfare gains, after accounting for the tax revenue loss; (2) with adverse selection and an initial pooling equilibrium comprised of "sick" and "healthy" consumers, introducing HSAs can, but does not necessarily, lead to a new pooling equilibrium. The new equilibrium results in a higher coinsurance rate, an increase in expected utility for healthy consumers, and a decrease in expected utility for sick consumers; (3) with adverse selection and a separating equilibrium, both sick and healthy consumers are better off with a health savings account; (4) efficiency gains are possible when insurance contracts are explicitly linked to tax-preferred health savings accounts.

  13. Option pricing: a flexible tool to disseminate shared savings contracts.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Friedberg, Mark W; Buendia, Anthony M; Lauderdale, Katherine E; Hussey, Peter S

    2013-08-01

    Due to volatility in healthcare costs, shared savings contracts can create systematic financial losses for payers, especially when contracting with smaller providers. To improve the business case for shared savings, we calculated the prices of financial options that payers can "sell" to providers to offset these losses. Using 2009 to 2010 member-level total cost of care data from a large commercial health plan, we calculated option prices by applying a bootstrap simulation procedure. We repeated these simulations for providers of sizes ranging from 500 to 60,000 patients and for shared savings contracts with and without key design features (minimum savings thresholds,bonus caps, cost outlier truncation, and downside risk) and under assumptions of zero, 1%, and 2% real cost reductions due to the shared savings contracts. Assuming no real cost reduction and a 50% shared savings rate, per patient option prices ranged from $225 (3.1% of overall costs) for 500-patient providers to $23 (0.3%) for 60,000-patient providers. Introducing minimum savings thresholds, bonus caps, cost outlier truncation, and downside risk reduced these option prices. Option prices were highly sensitive to the magnitude of real cost reductions. If shared savings contracts cause 2% reductions in total costs, option prices fall to zero for all but the smallest providers. Calculating the prices of financial options that protect payers and providers from downside risk can inject flexibility into shared savings contracts, extend such contracts to smaller providers, and clarify the tradeoffs between different contract designs, potentially speeding the dissemination of shared savings.

  14. Taxation and the household saving rate: evidence from OECD countries

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vito Tanzi

    2000-03-01

    Full Text Available This paper analyzes anew the relationship between taxation and the household saving rate. On the basis of standard savings and tax revenue data from a sample of OECD countries, it provides compelling empirical evidence of a powerful impact of taxes on household savings. In particular, income taxes are shown to affect negatively the household saving rate much more than consumption taxes.

  15. Saving Face and Group Identity

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Eriksson, Tor; Mao, Lei; Villeval, Marie-Claire

    2015-01-01

    their self- but also other group members' image. This behavior is frequent even in the absence of group identity. When group identity is more salient, individuals help regardless of whether the least performer is an in-group or an out-group. This suggests that saving others' face is a strong social norm.......Are people willing to sacrifice resources to save one's and others' face? In a laboratory experiment, we study whether individuals forego resources to avoid the public exposure of the least performer in their group. We show that a majority of individuals are willing to pay to preserve not only...

  16. Private savings and financial modernization in Mexico, 1988-95

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Julio Lopez G.

    2000-09-01

    Full Text Available The evolution of private savings has attracted a lot of attention in the controversy about the origins of Mexico's 1995 crisis. In this paper the authors analyze the evolution of private savings in Mexico using the theory of effective demand as a framework and making use of econometric estimates. In this context, they analyze the impact of the financial reforms, and in particular the effect of liberalization and deregulation of the financial system on private savings in Mexico from 1980 to 1995. The authors formulate an explanation of the determinants of private savingsand the impact of the strategy of "financial modernization" on private savings, by specifying a model that allows to identify the influence of monetary and credit policies on savings. Then they carry out econometric estimates that lend empirical support to the main conclusions of the theoretical analysis. Their econometric work confirm notably that private savings has been low due to a series of changes in monetary policy that favored the contraction of private demand and led to greater foreign indebtedness.

  17. Summary of the financial and ratepayer impacts of nuclear power plant regulatory reform

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Turpin, A.Y.

    1985-05-01

    This report estimates the financial impact on utilities and ratepayers of nuclear power plant regulatory reforms. Three situations are investigated: (1) no reform, (2) combined early-site-permit and preapproval-of-design reforms, and (3) total reform. Also, two types of capacity additions are evaluated using two utility companies as case studies: (1) nuclear plus generic capacity, and (2) all-nuclear capacity. Results indicate that both the shorter construction lead-time afforded by nuclear regulatory reform and the timing of new capacity additions are extremely important in enabling a utility to remain in a healthy financial position while adding capacity to meet future demand and at the same time reducing the price of electricity to the ratepayers. The lower added capital costs and fuel cost savings obtained from reformed nuclear units allow a utility dependent on oil and gas steam generation to experience price decreases as these new units begin commercial operation. The study also points out that in simulations excluding the shorter lead-time generic capacity, price increases were greater and financial performance was worse for both utilities. These facts indicate the importance of shortening the construction lead-time through nuclear regulatory reform so that nuclear power will be more competitive with coal. 19 refs., 4 figs., 3 tabs

  18. Blue Line Innovations brochure : Think green, act smart, save energy

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    NONE

    2005-07-01

    Blue Line Innovations Inc. is working with leading electric utilities and regulatory agencies to provide smart-home technologies to consumers for demand-side management. Their latest product is the PowerCost Monitor, a real-time feedback product that help households understand and reduce the amount of electricity they use. The monitor, which reveals electricity use in real-time by both total and current cost and kilowatt hour, uses wireless encrypted technology to send usage information from an outside meter to an in-home display. The small detector/transmitter can be easily installed to an existing household electro-mechanical utility meter by the homeowner without an electrician or service disruption. Studies have shown that when domestic users are provided with real-time feedback on electricity usage, they can reduce their energy bills by as much as 20 per cent. This in-home measuring and reporting unit helps customers make decisions about changing their usage habits, purchasing electricity-saving light and appliances and conserving energy. In a demonstration project, Hydro-One installed PowerCost Monitors in the homes of Hydro One customers in Ontario in July 2004. The objective was to determine the extent of changes in customer behaviour and reductions in electricity consumption resulting from direct real-time feedback information on electricity consumption. Other demonstration projects have been launched in conjunction with CEA Technologies Inc., Natural Resources Canada, Newfoundland Power and BC hydro to install the monitors in homes on both coasts of Canada. Governments, utilities, communities and individuals are recognizing that saving energy is a critical factor to sustainable development by conserving natural resources and reducing pollution. A list of suggestions for reducing electricity use in lighting, kitchens, laundry and heating and cooling were also presented. 1 fig.

  19. Saving water to save the environment: Contrasting the effectiveness of environmental and monetary appeals in a residential water saving intervention

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Tijs, M.S.; Karremans, J.C.T.M.; Veling, H.P.; Lange, M.A. de; Meegeren, P. van; Lion, R.

    2017-01-01

    To convince people to reduce their energy consumption, two types of persuasive appeals often are used by environmental organizations: Monetary appeals (i.e., 'conserving energy will save you money') and environmental appeals (i.e., 'conserving energy will protect the environment'). In this field

  20. INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES IN MANAGEMENT OF ENERGY SAVING PROJECTS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Дмитро Валерійович МАРГАСОВ

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available The information technology structure is considered of energy saving projects. The project management diagram of energy saving projects is developed, using GIS, ICS, BIM and other control and visual systems.

  1. Realized Cost Savings 2016

    Data.gov (United States)

    Department of Veterans Affairs — This dataset is provided as a requirement of OMB’s Integrated Data Collection (IDC) and links to VA’s Realized Cost Savings and Avoidances data in JSON format. Cost...

  2. Mission aware energy saving strategies for Army ground vehicles

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dattathreya, Macam S.

    Fuel energy is a basic necessity for this planet and the modern technology to perform many activities on earth. On the other hand, quadrupled automotive vehicle usage by the commercial industry and military has increased fuel consumption. Military readiness of Army ground vehicles is very important for a country to protect its people and resources. Fuel energy is a major requirement for Army ground vehicles. According to a report, a department of defense has spent nearly $13.6 billion on fuel and electricity to conduct ground missions. On the contrary, energy availability on this plant is slowly decreasing. Therefore, saving energy in Army ground vehicles is very important. Army ground vehicles are embedded with numerous electronic systems to conduct missions such as silent and normal stationary surveillance missions. Increasing electrical energy consumption of these systems is influencing higher fuel consumption of the vehicle. To save energy, the vehicles can use any of the existing techniques, but they require complex, expensive, and time consuming implementations. Therefore, cheaper and simpler approaches are required. In addition, the solutions have to save energy according to mission needs and also overcome size and weight constraints of the vehicle. Existing research in the current literature do not have any mission aware approaches to save energy. This dissertation research proposes mission aware online energy saving strategies for stationary Army ground vehicles to save energy as well as to meet the electrical needs of the vehicle during surveillance missions. The research also proposes theoretical models of surveillance missions, fuzzy logic models of engine and alternator efficiency data, and fuzzy logic algorithms. Based on these models, two energy saving strategies are proposed for silent and normal surveillance type of missions. During silent mission, the engine is on and batteries power the systems. During normal surveillance mission, the engine is

  3. Crushing leads to waste disposal savings for FUSRAP

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Darby, J. [Department of Energy, Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

    1997-02-01

    In this article the author discusses the application of a rock crusher as a means of implementing cost savings in the remediation of FUSRAP sites. Transportation and offsite disposal costs are at present the biggest cost items in the remediation of FUSRAP sites. If these debris disposal problems can be handled in different manners, then remediation savings are available. Crushing can result in the ability to handle some wastes as soil disposal problems, which have different disposal regulations, thereby permitting cost savings.

  4. Public administration electricity savings. Offentlige energibesparelser; Nyere danske erfaringer

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Gjelstrup, G

    1991-01-01

    Analysis on how different types of public authorities experienced carrying out electricity savings showed that the individual public authority's internal political-administrative organizational form is of major importance for the possibilities of realizing potential electricity savings. In addition, it can be concluded that only certain public authorities have utilized external assistance in connection with effecting electricity savings. In these cases there has been some accordance between the particular authority's internal, political-administrative, organization and the organizational form presupposed in the external assistance offered. In spite of this, the public authorities in question have, in general, not progressed very far with electricity savings. Part of the reason for this lies namely in the fact that the special importance the mode of organization has for electricity savings, has been overlooked in this type of assistance. (CLS) 43 refs.

  5. Public administration electricity savings. Offentlige energibesparelser; Nyere danske erfaringer

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Gjelstrup, G.

    1991-01-01

    Analysis on how different types of public authorities experienced carrying out electricity savings showed that the individual public authority's internal political-administrative organizational form is of major importance for the possibilities of realizing potential electricity savings. In addition, it can be concluded that only certain public authorities have utilized external assistance in connection with effecting electricity savings. In these cases there has been some accordance between the particular authority's internal, political-administrative, organization and the organizational form presupposed in the external assistance offered. In spite of this, the public authorities in question have, in general, not progressed very far with electricity savings. Part of the reason for this lies namely in the fact that the special importance the mode of organization has for electricity savings, has been overlooked in this type of assistance. (CLS) 43 refs.

  6. Evaluating hypotheses in geolocation on a very large sample of Twitter

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Salehi, Bahar; Søgaard, Anders

    2017-01-01

    Recent work in geolocation has madeseveral hypotheses about what linguisticmarkers are relevant to detect where peoplewrite from. In this paper, we examinesix hypotheses against a corpus consistingof all geo-tagged tweets from theUS, or whose geo-tags could be inferred,in a 19% sample of Twitter...

  7. Consumption, Saving, Investment, and Unemployment. SVAR Tests of the Effects of Changes in the Consumption-Saving Pattern

    OpenAIRE

    Roberto Bande Ramudo; Manuel Fernández Grela; Mª Dolores Riveiro García

    2011-01-01

    In this paper we aim to provide information about the transmission mechanism at work between investment and unemployment by looking at the consumption-saving pattern as a determinant of investment behaviour. Our starting hypothesis is that permanent shifts in the consumption-saving pattern will have permanent effects on investment, with subsequent consequences for the unemployment rate. To test this hypothesis we build an SVAR model for the Spanish economy seeking information about the respon...

  8. More than 30 per cent energy savings possible with LEDs in gerbera : substantial energy savings and little loss in production

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Helm, van der F.P.M.

    2015-01-01

    By installing LED-lighting and limiting it to 80 instead of 100 μmol gerbera growers can save 30 per cent on energy without any great loss in production, according to research. Light integration and interlighting don’t yet deliver any savings.

  9. Recording and Audit of Resource Saving Innovations at Modern Industrial Companies

    OpenAIRE

    I. M.

    2017-01-01

    Resource saving and energy saving are essential components of “energy security” problem in all the countries, which raises the importance of analysis and revision of approaches to organization of recording and audit of resource saving innovations at industrial companies. The article’s objective is to study organization of recording and audit of resource saving technologies at industrial companies. A review of resource saving purposes and methods is given. For accounting purposes, innovati...

  10. The HIV Anticaptory Saving Motive : An Empirical Analysis in South Africa

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Lammers, J.; van de Kuilen, G.

    2007-01-01

    This paper studies the effect of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on saving behaviour. Two important characteristics of HIV result in opposing forces on savings: mortality increases, which reduces savings, and long-term illness risk increases, which enhances savings. We use a two period life-cycle model with

  11. Non-declarative sequence learning does not show savings in relearning.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Keisler, Aysha; Willingham, Daniel T

    2007-04-01

    Researchers have utilized the savings in relearning paradigm in a variety of settings since Ebbinghaus developed the tool over a century ago. In spite of its widespread use, we do not yet understand what type(s) of memory are measurable by savings. Specifically, can savings measure both declarative and non-declarative memories? The lack of conscious recollection of the encoded material in some studies indicates that non-declarative memories may show savings effects, but as all studies to date have used declarative tasks, we cannot be certain. Here, we administer a non-declarative task and then measure savings in relearning the material declaratively. Our results show that while material outside of awareness may show savings effects, non-declarative sequence memory does not. These data highlight the important distinction between memory without awareness and non-declarative memory.

  12. Explanatory hypotheses formation and the anomalous β spectrum

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Gauderis, Tjerk [Centre for Logic and Philosophy of Science, Ghent University (Belgium)

    2013-07-01

    Between 1928 and 1934, a persevering anomaly mystified the physics community: while alpha decay behaved perfectly according to the new quantum mechanics, the energy of electrons emitted in beta decay displayed a broad continuous spectrum. This puzzle invoked a lively debate among the most established physicists at the time. But the curious thing was that they all suggested hypotheses of very different formal types: Rutherford and Chadwick thought of varying internal energies, Bohr suggested to restrict the energy conservation principle, Heisenberg tinkered with a new quantization of space, and Pauli suggested the existence of a new elementary particle - all these hypotheses being radical and highly controversial. In physics, an anomalous experimental result can trigger the formation of formally very different hypotheses. A scientist confronted with such a result has no strict guidelines to help her decide whether she should explain this result by withdrawing or adapting a constraint (e.g. a law) of the current theory, or by presupposing the existence of a hitherto unobserved entity (e.g. a particle) that makes the anomaly fit within that theory. In this talk I aim to gain some insights how scientists make this choice, by examining in the above case study how the choice of the various mentioned physicists depended on their previous experiences and their specific perception of the problem.

  13. Causes of bat fatalities at wind turbines: Hypotheses and predictions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cryan, P.M.; Barclay, R.M.R.

    2009-01-01

    Thousands of industrial-scale wind turbines are being built across the world each year to meet the growing demand for sustainable energy. Bats of certain species are dying at wind turbines in unprecedented numbers. Species of bats consistently affected by turbines tend to be those that rely on trees as roosts and most migrate long distances. Although considerable progress has been made in recent years toward better understanding the problem, the causes of bat fatalities at turbines remain unclear. In this synthesis, we review hypothesized causes of bat fatalities at turbines. Hypotheses of cause fall into 2 general categoriesproximate and ultimate. Proximate causes explain the direct means by which bats die at turbines and include collision with towers and rotating blades, and barotrauma. Ultimate causes explain why bats come close to turbines and include 3 general types: random collisions, coincidental collisions, and collisions that result from attraction of bats to turbines. The random collision hypothesis posits that interactions between bats and turbines are random events and that fatalities are representative of the bats present at a site. Coincidental hypotheses posit that certain aspects of bat distribution or behavior put them at risk of collision and include aggregation during migration and seasonal increases in flight activity associated with feeding or mating. A surprising number of attraction hypotheses suggest that bats might be attracted to turbines out of curiosity, misperception, or as potential feeding, roosting, flocking, and mating opportunities. Identifying, prioritizing, and testing hypothesized causes of bat collisions with wind turbines are vital steps toward developing practical solutions to the problem. ?? 2009 American Society of Mammalogists.

  14. Context analysis for a new regulatory model for electric utilities in Brazil

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    El Hage, Fabio S.; Rufín, Carlos

    2016-01-01

    This article examines what would have to change in the Brazilian regulatory framework in order to make utilities profit from energy efficiency and the integration of resources, instead of doing so from traditional consumption growth, as it happens at present. We argue that the Brazilian integrated electric sector resembles a common-pool resources problem, and as such it should incorporate, in addition to the centralized operation for power dispatch already in place, demand side management, behavioral strategies, and smart grids, attained through a new business and regulatory model for utilities. The paper proposes several measures to attain a more sustainable and productive electricity distribution industry: decoupling revenues from volumetric sales through a fixed maximum load fee, which would completely offset current disincentives for energy efficiency; the creation of a market for negawatts (saved megawatts) using the current Brazilian mechanism of public auctions for the acquisition of wholesale energy; and the integration of technologies, especially through the growth of unregulated products and services. Through these measures, we believe that Brazil could improve both energy security and overall sustainability of its power sector in the long run. - Highlights: • Necessary changes in the Brazilian regulatory framework towards energy efficiency. • How to incorporate demand side management, behavioral strategies, and smart grids. • Proposition of a market for negawatts at public auctions. • Measures to attain a more sustainable electricity distribution industry in Brazil.

  15. The effect of net foreign assets on saving rate

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ben David Nissim

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available Observing empirical data we find that many countries try to delay the decision of increasing saving rate in order to avoid a decrease of the living standards. However the delay leads a deterioration of countries financial stability. We present a simple theoretical model that connects between countries' saving rate and their net foreign assets. Using cross section data set of 135 countries in 2010 we estimated the econometric relation between saving rate in 2010 as dependent variable and two explanatory variables: the current account in 2010 and the aggregated current account during 1980-2010. Our findings show that industrial countries in a bad financial state tend to decrease their saving rate as external debt is larger causing to deterioration in external debt while countries with good financial state tend to increase their saving rate and the tendency increase as financial state becomes better. Only in countries with a very large external debt saving rate tends to grow. The results point that gross foreign debt will keep increasing and will worsen world financial state causing increased risk of getting into a world crisis.

  16. Adaptive hatching hypotheses do not explain asynchronous ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    At the core of the suite of adaptive hatching hypotheses advanced to explain asynchronous hatching in birds is the assumption that if food is not limited then all the hatchlings will develop normally to adulthood. In this study Brown-headed Parrot Poicephalus cryptoxanthus chicks were hand fed and weighed on a daily basis.

  17. THE PUZZLE OF SIMULTANEOUS SAVINGS AND DEBTS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    RODICA IANOLE

    2012-05-01

    Full Text Available „Neither a borrower nor a lender be” recommends Shakespeare in Hamlet. The advice seems particularly interesting in nowadays society where a person can be easily found in both approximate situations, in the same time. It goes without saying that saving and borrowing do not describe mutually exclusive strategies of financial management and thus many people retain savings or carry on saving at the same time as having debts. We add to this fact a more pragmatically wisdom, the one of the economist Robert Solow -“We (economists think of wealth as fungible; we think a dollar is a dollar. Why don't they (the others do so?” (Solow, 1987 – and we naturally ask ourselves if the mechanism of having simultaneous savings and debts is a rational one, according to traditional economics.Making appeal to the emerging body of behavioral economics literature we reach to the mental accounting theory to see if it can explain savings inclination versus debt inclination. The main research question we want to explore is the following: if mental accounting prevents people from spending money from one „mental account” on goods belonging to another one, will people – after using all their money from a given account – be willing to go into debt to buy goods belonging to this account in a situation when they still have money in other accounts?

  18. Non-Declarative Sequence Learning does not Show Savings in Relearning

    OpenAIRE

    Keisler, Aysha; Willingham, Daniel T.

    2007-01-01

    Researchers have utilized the savings in relearning paradigm in a variety of settings since Ebbinghaus developed the tool over a century ago. In spite of its widespread use, we do not yet understand what type(s) of memory are measurable by savings. Specifically, can savings measure both declarative and non-declarative memories? The lack of conscious recollection of the encoded material in some studies indicates that non-declarative memories may show savings effects, but as all studies to date...

  19. Potential energy savings from cool roofs in Spain and Andalusia

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Boixo, Sergio; Diaz-Vicente, Marian; Colmenar, Antonio; Castro, Manuel Alonso

    2012-01-01

    Cool roofs are an inexpensive method to save energy and to improve the comfort level in buildings in mild and hot climates. A high scale implementation of cool roofs in Andalusia, in the south of Spain, could potentially save 295,000 kWh per year, considering only residential buildings with flat roofs using electrical heating. At the current energy prices, consumers can save 59 million euros annually in electricity costs and the emission of 136,000 metric tons of CO 2 can be directly avoided every year from the production of that electricity. If radiative forcings are considered, Andalucía can potentially offset between 9.44 and 12 Mt of CO 2 . All the provinces in the rest of Spain are also studied in this paper. The biggest savings are achieved in Gran Canaria (48%), Tenerife (48%), Cádiz (36%), Murcia (33%), Huelva (30%), Málaga (29%), Almería (29%) and Sevilla (28%), where savings are greater than 2 euros per square meter of flat roof for old buildings with dark roofs. For the biggest cities the range of savings obtained are: between 7.4% and 11% in Madrid, between 12% and 18% in Barcelona and between 14% and 20% in Valencia. -- Highlights: ► We estimate potential savings in energy, CO 2 , and money for cool roofs in Spain (residential sector with flat roofs). ► Average savings are of around one euro per square meter in the biggest cities. ► Potential savings are of more than 2 €/m 2 in the hottest cities. ► In Andalusia the potential savings are 300 MWh, 60 millions euro and 136,000 tons of CO 2 per year. ► With forcings, the CO 2 equivalence of cool roofs in Andalusia is between 9 and 12 Mt.

  20. Energy reduction for a dual circuit cooling water system using advanced regulatory control

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Muller, C.J.; Craig, I.K.

    2016-01-01

    Highlights: • Potentially reduce energy required by a dual circuit cooling water system by 30%. • Accomplished using an advanced regulatory control and switching strategy. • No formal process model is required. • Can be implemented on control system hardware commonly used in industry. - Abstract: Various process utilities are used in the petrochemical industry as auxiliary variables to facilitate the addition/removal of energy to/from the process, power process equipment and inhibit unwanted reaction. Optimisation activities usually focus on the process itself or on the utility consumption though the generation and distribution of these utilities are often overlooked in this regard. Many utilities are prepared or generated far from the process plant and have to be transported or transmitted, giving rise to more losses and potential inefficiencies. To illustrate the potential benefit of utility optimisation, this paper explores the control of a dual circuit cooling water system with focus on energy reduction subject process constraints. This is accomplished through the development of an advanced regulatory control (ARC) and switching strategy which does not require the development of a system model, only rudimentary knowledge of the behaviour of the process and system constraints. The novelty of this manuscript lies in the fact that it demonstrates that significant energy savings can be obtained by applying ARC to a process utility containing both discrete and continuous dynamics. Furthermore, the proposed ARC strategy does not require a plant model, uses only existing plant equipment, and can be implemented on control system hardware commonly used in industry. The simulation results indicate energy saving potential in the region of 30% on the system under investigation.

  1. Individual savings accounts for social insurance

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bovenberg, Lans; Hansen, Martin Ino; Sørensen, Peter Birch

    2008-01-01

    Using Danish data, we find that about three-fourths of the taxes levied to finance public transfers actually finance benefits that redistribute income over the life cycle of individual taxpayers rather than redistribute resources across people. This finding and similar results for other countries...... provide a rationale for financing part of social insurance via mandatory individual savings accounts. We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of mandatory individual savings accounts for social insurance and survey some recent alternative proposals for such accounts...

  2. Factors influencing energy-saving behavior of urban households in Jiangsu Province

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Yue, Ting; Long, Ruyin; Chen, Hong

    2013-01-01

    In this research, the willingness of households to adopt different energy-saving behavior has been analyzed, and factors influencing energy-saving behavior in Jiangsu Province, China, have been examined. The study builds on a broad and practical conceptual framework that embraces three types of energy-saving behavior and four dimensions of influencing factors, including socio-demographics, energy-saving awareness, behavioral ability, and situational factors. The empirical results are based on an Internet survey that was sent out to 638 households. The results indicate that socio-demographic characteristics, including age, gender, income level, household structure, and educational background, are all important factors influencing energy-saving behavior. At present, respondents adopt the usage-reduction type of behavior more often than the other two types, which require a greater capacity to pay for energy-efficient products and a higher level of energy-saving awareness. Situational factors have significant positive moderating effects when the variables of behavioral ability and energy-saving awareness act on energy-saving behavior. In addition, the results also show that spatial differences exist among the three regions of Jiangsu Province. Finally, some implications of these results for the design of future incentive policies and measures to encourage energy-saving behavior are presented. -- Highlights: •A broad and practical conceptual framework of energy-saving behaviors is built. •Socio-demographic characteristics are determinants of energy-saving behavior. •Respondents adopt the usage-reduction type more often than the other two types. •Situational factors have positive moderating effects on the other two variables. •Spatial differences exist among the three regions of Jiangsu Province

  3. Regulatory activities

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2001-01-01

    This publication, compiled in 8 chapters, presents the regulatory system developed by the Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NRA) of the Argentine Republic. The following activities and developed topics in this document describe: the evolution of the nuclear regulatory activity in Argentina; the Argentine regulatory system; the nuclear regulatory laws and standards; the inspection and safeguards of nuclear facilities; the emergency systems; the environmental systems; the environmental monitoring; the analysis laboratories on physical and biological dosimetry, prenatal irradiation, internal irradiation, radiation measurements, detection techniques on nuclear testing, medical program on radiation protection; the institutional relations with national and international organization; the training courses and meeting; the technical information

  4. Dedicated orthogeriatric service saves the HSE a million euro

    LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

    Shanahan, E

    2016-03-01

    Hip fracture is common in older adults and is associated with high morbidity, mortality and significant health care costs. A pilot orthogeriatrics service was established in an acute hospital. We aimed to establish the cost effectiveness of this service. Length of hospital stay, discharge destination and rehabilitation requirements were analysed for a one year period and compared to patients who received usual care prior to the service. We calculated the costs incurred and savings produced by the orthogeriatric service. Median length of stay was reduced by 3 days (p=<0.001) saving €266,976. There was a 19% reduction in rehabilitation requirements saving €192,600. Median rehabilitation length of stay was reduced by 6.5 days saving €171,093. Reductions in long term care requirements led to savings of €10,934 per week. Costs to establish such a service amount to €171,564. The introduction of this service led to improved patient outcomes in a cost effective manner.

  5. Assistance to Oil and Gas State Agencies and Industry through Continuation of Environmental and Production Data Management and a Water Regulatory Initiative

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Grunewald, Ben; Arthur, Dan; Langhus, Bruce; Gillespie, Tom; Binder, Ben; Warner, Don; Roberts, Jim; Cox, D.O.

    2002-05-31

    This grant project was a major step toward completion of the Risk Based Data Management System (RBDMS) project. Additionally the project addresses the needs identified during the projects initial phases. By implementing this project, the following outcomes were sought: (1) State regulatory agencies implemented more formalized environmental risk management practices as they pertain to the production of oil and gas, and injection via Class II wells. (2) Enhancement of oil and gas production by implementing a management system supporting the saving of abandoned or idle wells located in areas with a relatively low environmental risk of endangering underground sources of drinking water (USDWs) in a particular state. (3) Verification that protection of USDWs is adequate and additional restrictions of requirements are not necessary in areas with a relatively low environmental risk. (4) Standardization of data and information maintained by state regulatory agencies and decrease the regulatory cost burden on producers operating in multiple states, and (5) Development of a system for electronic data transfer among operators and state regulatory agencies and reduction of overall operator reporting burdens.

  6. The influence of Multiple Goals on Driving Behavior: the case of Safety, Time Saving, and Fuel Saving

    OpenAIRE

    DOGAN, Ebru; STEG, Linda; DELHOMME, Patricia

    2011-01-01

    Due to the innate complexity of the task drivers have to manage multiple goals while driving and the importance of certain goals may vary over time leading to priority being given to different goals depending on the circumstances. This study aimed to investigate drivers' behavioral regulation while managing multiple goals during driving. To do so participants drove on urban and rural roads in a driving simulator while trying to manage fuel saving and time saving goals, besides the safety goal...

  7. The Rhode Island Life Saving Score (RILSS)--a proposed life-saving definition for EMS and emergency medicine.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Williams, Kenneth A; Sullivan, Francis M

    2013-12-03

    Emergency Medical Services (EMS) and Emergency Medicine staff are often described as life-saving providers, but there is no generally accepted objective definition of a life saved by these providers. Therefore, a proposed definition is described. Development of this definition began with conceptual rules, followed by a survey of physician EMS medical directors, and then by the development of a tool to implement the definition, and measure its validity and reliability through a review of 100 critical care transport EMS patient charts.

  8. Using Patient Avatars to Promote Health Data Sharing Applications: Perspectives and Regulatory Challenges.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dahi, Alan; Forgó, Nikolaus; Jensen, Sarah; Stauch, Marc

    2016-04-01

    The potential of ICT to address problems in modern healthcare is considerable, and an ICT-driven revolution in healthcare appears imminent. Such developments maybe viewed largely in positive terms. Thus they should result in enhanced treatment and care options, empowering patients--including by permitting greater self-management of illness outside hospital, while offering economic benefits and costs savings over traditional healthcare provision. However, the new possibilities also present manifold risks, such as of data breaches, encroachments on subject autonomy, as well as of other harms. This article considers some of the key regulatory challenges against the background of the progress of the current EU Commission-sponsored 'MyHealthAvatar' project.

  9. Do Tax Incentives for Saving in Pension Accounts Cause Debt Accumulation?

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Yde Andersen, Henrik

    2018-01-01

    This paper applies a quasi-experimental research design on a Danish 2010 policy that reduced tax incentives for saving in annuity pension schemes to show significant substitution of savings from retirement accounts to gross debt repayments. We find that for every 1 Danish currency unit reduction...... in retirement savings 31 cents goes to debt repayments. Taking into account all types of savings, we find full crowding-out. Consistent with previous findings, we document that the effect is driven by a minority, about 23 percent, who actively rebalance their savings....

  10. Exploring Demand Charge Savings from Commercial Solar

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Darghouth, Naim [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Barbose, Galen [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Mills, Andrew [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Wiser, Ryan [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Gagnon, Pieter [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Bird, Lori [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

    2017-07-31

    Commercial retail electricity rates commonly include a demand charge component, based on some measure of the customer’s peak demand. Customer-sited solar PV can potentially reduce demand charges, but the magnitude of these savings can be difficult to predict, given variations in demand charge designs, customer loads, and PV generation profiles. Moreover, depending on the circumstances, demand charges from solar may or may not align well with associated utility cost savings. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) are collaborating in a series of studies to understand how solar PV can reduce demand charge levels for a variety of customer types and demand charges designs. Previous work focused on residential customs with solar. This study, instead, focuses on commercial customers and seeks to understand the extent and conditions under which rooftop can solar reduce commercial demand charges. To answer these questions, we simulate demand charge savings for a broad range of commercial customer types, demand charge designs, locations, and PV system characteristics. This particular analysis does not include storage, but a subsequent analysis in this series will evaluate demand charge savings for commercial customers with solar and storage.

  11. Bats on a Budget: Torpor-Assisted Migration Saves Time and Energy

    Science.gov (United States)

    McGuire, Liam P.; Jonasson, Kristin A.; Guglielmo, Christopher G.

    2014-01-01

    Bats and birds must balance time and energy budgets during migration. Migrating bats face similar physiological challenges to birds, but nocturnality creates special challenges for bats, such as a conflict between travelling and refueling, which many birds avoid by feeding in daylight and flying at night. As endothermic animals, bats and birds alike must expend substantial amounts of energy to maintain high body temperatures. For migratory birds refueling at stopovers, remaining euthermic during inactive periods reduces the net refuelling rate, thereby prolonging stopover duration and delaying subsequent movement. We hypothesized that bats could mitigate similar ambient-temperature dependent costs by using a torpor-assisted migration strategy. We studied silver-haired bats Lasionycteris noctivagans during autumn migration using a combination of respirometry and temperature-sensitive radiotelemetry to estimate energy costs incurred under ambient temperature conditions, and the energy that bats saved by using torpor during daytime roosting periods. All bats, regardless of sex, age, or body condition used torpor at stopover and saved up to 91% of the energy they would have expended to remain euthermic. Furthermore, bats modulated use of torpor depending on ambient temperature. By adjusting the time spent torpid, bats achieved a rate of energy expenditure independent of the ambient temperature encountered at stopover. By lowering body temperature during inactive periods, fuel stores are spared, reducing the need for refuelling. Optimal migration models consider trade-offs between time and energy. Heterothermy provides a physiological strategy that allows bats to conserve energy without paying a time penalty as they migrate. Although uncommon, some avian lineages are known to use heterothermy, and current theoretical models of migration may not be appropriate for these groups. We propose that thermoregulatory strategies should be an important consideration of future

  12. Housing-related lifestyle and energy saving: A multi-level approach

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Thøgersen, John

    2017-01-01

    A new instrument for measuring housing-related lifestyle (HRL) is introduced and employed for identifying national and cross-national HRL segments in 10 European countries (N=3190). The identified HRL segments are profiled and the practical importance of HRL for everyday energy-saving efforts in the home and for the energy-consumer's openness to new energy saving opportunities (i.e., energy saving innovativeness) is investigated. The HRL instrument's 71 items load on 16 dimensions within five lifestyle elements. Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis reveals that the instrument possesses metric but not scalar (measurement) invariance across the 10 countries. Multilevel latent class analysis is used to classify participants to HRL segments and the 10 countries into regions with similar segment structure. The optimal solution has seven HRL segments and three country classes, which are profiled in terms of relevant background characteristics. A multivariate GLM analysis reveals that when differences in housing-related lifestyles are controlled, neither country of residence nor the interaction between lifestyle and country of residence influence energy saving innovativeness or everyday energy-saving efforts. However, these two behavioural tendencies vary significantly and substantially between lifestyle segments. The study shows that HRL segmentation is a useful tool for creating more targeted and effective energy-saving campaigns. - Highlights: • 7 housing-related lifestyle segments identified in 10 European countries. • The 10 countries cluster in 3 regions with similar housing-related lifestyle pattern. • Lifestyle segments differ significantly with regard to energy saving efforts. • Lifestyle segments also differ with regard to energy saving innovativeness. • Housing-related lifestyle mediate all effects of country on energy saving.

  13. Streamlined energy-savings calculations for heat-island reduction strategies

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Akbari, Hashem; Konopacki, Steven J.

    2003-03-15

    We have developed summary tables (sorted by heating- and cooling-degree-days) to estimate the potential of Heat-Island Reduction (HIR) strategies (i.e., solar-reflective roofs, shade trees, reflective pavements, and urban vegetation) to reduce cooling-energy use in buildings. The tables provide estimates of savings for both direct effect (reducing heat gain through the building shell) and indirect effect (reducing the ambient air temperature). In this analysis, we considered three building types that offer the most savings potential : residences, offices, and retail stores. Each building type was characterized in detail by Pre-1980 (old) or 1980+ (new) construction vintage and with natural gas or electricity as heating fuel. We defined prototypical-building characteristics for each building type and simulated the effects of HIR strategies on building cooling and heating energy use and peak power demand using the DOE-2.1E model and weather data for about 240 locations in the U.S. A statistical analysis of previously completed simulations for five cities was used to estimate the indirect savings. Our simulations included the effect of (1) solar-reflective roofing material on building [direct effect], (2) placement of deciduous shade trees near south and west walls of building [direct effect], and (3) ambient cooling achieved by urban reforestation and reflective building surfaces and pavements [indirect effect]. Upon completion of estimating the direct and indirect energy savings for all the selected locations, we integrated the results in tables arranged by heating- and cooling-degree-days. We considered 15 bins for heating-degree-days, and 11 bins for cooling-degree-days. Energy use and savings are presented per 1000 ft2 of roof area. In residences heated with gas and in climates with greater than 1000 cooling-degree-days, the annual electricity savings in Pre-1980 stock ranged from 650 to 1300 kWh/1000ft2; for 1980+ stock savings ranged 300 to 600 kWh/1000 ft2

  14. Barriers to investments in energy saving technologies. Case study for the industry

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Masselink, Dirk Jan

    2007-01-01

    To realise future energy saving targets, the government needs to increase energy reduction rates. One option to increase energy savings is found in removing barriers to investments in cost-effective energy saving technologies. Many technologies save energ

  15. Net-Zero Building Technologies Create Substantial Energy Savings -

    Science.gov (United States)

    only an estimated 1% of commercial buildings are built to net-zero energy criteria. One reason for this Continuum Magazine | NREL Net-Zero Building Technologies Create Substantial Energy Savings Net -Zero Building Technologies Create Substantial Energy Savings Researchers work to package and share step

  16. High-risk medical devices, children and the FDA: regulatory challenges facing pediatric mechanical circulatory support devices.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Almond, Christopher S D; Chen, Eric A; Berman, Michael R; Less, Joanne R; Baldwin, J Timothy; Linde-Feucht, Sarah R; Hoke, Tracey R; Pearson, Gail D; Jenkins, Kathy; Duncan, Brian W; Zuckerman, Bram D

    2007-01-01

    Pediatric mechanical circulatory support is a critical unmet need in the United States. Infant- and child-sized ventricular assist devices are currently being developed largely through federal contracts and grants through the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). Human testing and marketing of high-risk devices for children raises epidemiologic and regulatory issues that will need to be addressed. Leaders from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), NHLBI, academic pediatric community, and industry convened in January 2006 for the first FDA Workshop on the Regulatory Process for Pediatric Mechanical Circulatory Support Devices. The purpose was to provide the pediatric community with an overview of the federal regulatory process for high-risk medical devices and to review the challenges specific to the development and regulation of pediatric mechanical circulatory support devices. Pediatric mechanical circulatory support present significant epidemiologic, logistic, and financial challenges to industry, federal regulators, and the pediatric community. Early interactions with the FDA, shared appreciation of challenges, and careful planning will be critical to avoid unnecessary delays in making potentially life-saving devices available for children. Collaborative efforts to address these challenges are warranted.

  17. Energy-saving measures in multi-storage housing construction

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Мария Дмитриевна Коровина

    2017-05-01

    Full Text Available In this article the main directions of energy saving in multi-storey housing construction and methods for increasing energy efficiency are considered. The main problems of implementing energy-saving measures were touched; the need for their analysis during the development of each construction project with a view to choosing the most effective complex from the energy, economic, ecological and social points of view was justified. It is noted that such an approach can become an important factor of saving energy in the sphere of housing construction and reducing the energy intensity of the entire Russian economy.

  18. Large Hospital 50% Energy Savings: Technical Support Document

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Bonnema, E.; Studer, D.; Parker, A.; Pless, S.; Torcellini, P.

    2010-09-01

    This Technical Support Document documents the technical analysis and design guidance for large hospitals to achieve whole-building energy savings of at least 50% over ANSI/ASHRAE/IESNA Standard 90.1-2004 and represents a step toward determining how to provide design guidance for aggressive energy savings targets. This report documents the modeling methods used to demonstrate that the design recommendations meet or exceed the 50% goal. EnergyPlus was used to model the predicted energy performance of the baseline and low-energy buildings to verify that 50% energy savings are achievable. Percent energy savings are based on a nominal minimally code-compliant building and whole-building, net site energy use intensity. The report defines architectural-program characteristics for typical large hospitals, thereby defining a prototype model; creates baseline energy models for each climate zone that are elaborations of the prototype models and are minimally compliant with Standard 90.1-2004; creates a list of energy design measures that can be applied to the prototype model to create low-energy models; uses industry feedback to strengthen inputs for baseline energy models and energy design measures; and simulates low-energy models for each climate zone to show that when the energy design measures are applied to the prototype model, 50% energy savings (or more) are achieved.

  19. Sign Up for Savings.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kennedy, Mike

    2002-01-01

    Discusses performance service contracts between educational facilities and energy services companies, in which the company provides the money for energy-efficiency improvements and the school pays the company an annual fee. The company guarantees the savings will meet or exceed the fee. (EV)

  20. FY 1997 cost savings report

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sellards, J.B.

    1998-01-01

    With the end of the cold war, funding for the Environmental Management program increased rapidly as nuclear weapons production facilities were shut down, cleanup responsibilities increased, and facilities were transferred to the cleanup program. As funding for the Environmental Management (EM) program began to level off in response to Administration and Congressional efforts to balance the Federal budget, the program redoubled its efforts to increase efficiency and get more productivity out of every dollar. Cost savings and enhanced performance are an integral pair of Hanford Site operations. FY1997 was the third year of a cost savings program that was initially defined in FY 1995. The definitions and process remained virtually the same as those used in FY 1996

  1. Cancer stem cell hypotheses: Impact on modern molecular

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    basis for the so-called cancer stem cell (CSC) hypotheses. The first exact proof of CSC ... or less equal ability for tumour regeneration and repopulation. (Nowell 1976 .... Also, there are reports that the 'stemness' (stem-like properties) of brain.

  2. VA Telemedicine: An Analysis of Cost and Time Savings.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Russo, Jack E; McCool, Ryan R; Davies, Louise

    2016-03-01

    The Veterans Affairs (VA) healthcare system provides beneficiary travel reimbursement ("travel pay") to qualifying patients for traveling to appointments. Travel pay is a large expense for the VA and hence the U.S. Government, projected to cost nearly $1 billion in 2015. Telemedicine in the VA system has the potential to save money by reducing patient travel and thus the amount of travel pay disbursed. In this study, we quantify this savings and also report trends in VA telemedicine volumes over time. All telemedicine visits based at the VA Hospital in White River Junction, VT between 2005 and 2013 were reviewed (5,695 visits). Travel distance and time saved as a result of telemedicine were calculated. Clinical volume in the mental health department, which has had the longest participation in telemedicine, was analyzed. Telemedicine resulted in an average travel savings of 145 miles and 142 min per visit. This led to an average travel payment savings of $18,555 per year. Telemedicine volume grew significantly over the study period such that by the final year the travel pay savings had increased to $63,804, or about 3.5% of the total travel pay disbursement for that year. The number of mental health telemedicine visits rose over the study period but remained small relative to the number of face-to-face visits. A higher proportion of telemedicine visits involved new patients. Telemedicine at the VA saves travel distance and time, although the reduction in travel payments remains modest at current telemedicine volumes.

  3. A novel approach to generating CER hypotheses based on mining clinical data.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Shuo; Li, Lin; Yu, Yiqin; Sun, Xingzhi; Xu, Linhao; Zhao, Wei; Teng, Xiaofei; Pan, Yue

    2013-01-01

    Comparative effectiveness research (CER) is a scientific method of investigating the effectiveness of alternative intervention methods. In a CER study, clinical researchers typically start with a CER hypothesis, and aim to evaluate it by applying a series of medical statistical methods. Traditionally, the CER hypotheses are defined manually by clinical researchers. This makes the task of hypothesis generation very time-consuming and the quality of hypothesis heavily dependent on the researchers' skills. Recently, with more electronic medical data being collected, it is highly promising to apply the computerized method for discovering CER hypotheses from clinical data sets. In this poster, we proposes a novel approach to automatically generating CER hypotheses based on mining clinical data, and presents a case study showing that the approach can facilitate clinical researchers to identify potentially valuable hypotheses and eventually define high quality CER studies.

  4. Study on measuring analysis for estimating effect of energy saving policy

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Kim, Joong Ku; Park, Jeong Soon [Korea Energy Economics Institute, Euiwang (Korea)

    1999-12-01

    Since the study on measuring analysis for estimating effect of energy saving policy is too broad to implement all industries, so it limited its study only on manufacturing industry. This study is concentrated on its effort to measure energy saving using energy saving model by putting energy saving policy as an input and regarding its result as energy saving. It used B/C theory for positive analysis methodology and the result of analysis is investment effect on manufacturing industry. The total cost invested on manufacturing sector from 1982 to 1996 was 5,871 billion won based on constant cost in 1990, and the energy saving cost directly acquired from it reached 1,534.5 billion won based on constant cost in 1990, so B/C rate reached 2.56. Particularly, if you separated the amount supported by the government policy, energy saving support cost reached 3,904.2 billion won (based on constant cost in 1990) and the total benefit was 10,146.4 billion won (based on constant cost in 1990) by adding saving cost 9,997.9 billion won and environmental improvement effect 223.2 billion won. (author). 51 refs., 17 figs., 35 tabs.

  5. 76 FR 71437 - Mutual Savings Association Advisory Committee

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-11-17

    ... (MSAAC or Committee) formerly administered by the Office of Thrift Supervision, as it is necessary and in...: Timothy T. Ward, Deputy Comptroller for Thrift Supervision, 250 E Street SW., Washington, DC 20219. FOR... as federal savings associations (including federal savings banks); and (2) issue charters therefore...

  6. casual relationship between gross domestic saving and economic

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    TOSHIBA

    private saving has both direct and indirect effects on economic growth. ... sector have a bigger impact on GDP than gross domestic savings. ... Development economists have been concerned for decades about the crucial role of ..... higher investment and higher economic growth is not supported by East African countries.

  7. 12 CFR 591.3 - Loans originated by Federal savings associations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 12 Banks and Banking 5 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Loans originated by Federal savings... PREEMPTION OF STATE DUE-ON-SALE LAWS § 591.3 Loans originated by Federal savings associations. (a) With regard to any real property loan originated or to be originated by a Federal savings association, as a...

  8. Advanced Energy Saving and its Applications in Industry

    CERN Document Server

    Matsuda, Kazuo; Fushimi, Chihiro; Tsutsumi, Atsushi; Kishimoto, Akira

    2013-01-01

    The conventional approach for energy saving in a process system is to maximize heat recovery without changing any process conditions by using pinch technology. “Self-heat recuperation technology” was developed to achieve further energy saving in the process system by eliminating the necessity for any external heat input, such as firing or imported steam. Advanced Energy Saving and its Applications in Industry introduces the concept of self-heat recuperation and the application of such technology to a wide range of processes from heavy chemical complexes to other processes such as drying and gas separation processes, which require heating and cooling during operation.   Conventional energy saving items in a utility system are applied and implemented based on a single site approach, however, when looking at heavy chemical complexes, it was apparent that the low-grade heat discharged as waste from a refinery could also be used in an adjacent petrochemical plant. There could therefore be a large energy savin...

  9. Nuclear recycling: costs, savings, and safeguards

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Spinrad, B.I.

    1985-01-01

    This chapter discusses the economics, physical and chemical processes, and safety of nuclear fuel recycling. The spent fuel must be chemically reprocessed in order to recover uranium and plutonium. Topics considered include indifference costs, recycling in light water reactors (LWRs), plutonium in fast reactors, the choice between recycling and storage, safeguards, and weapons proliferation. It is shown that the economics of recycling nuclear fuel involves the actual costs and savings of the recycling operation in terms of money spent, made, and saved, and the impact of the recycling on the future cost of uranium

  10. Uterus transplantation: ethical and regulatory challenges.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Arora, Kavita Shah; Blake, Valarie

    2014-06-01

    Moving forward rapidly in the clinical research phase, uterus transplantation may be a future treatment option for women with uterine factor infertility, which accounts for three per cent of all infertility in women. This new method of treatment would allow women, who currently rely on gestational surrogacy or adoption, to gestate and birth their own genetic offspring. Since uterus transplantation carries significant risk when compared with surrogacy and adoption as well as when compared with other organ transplants, it requires greater justification because its goals are quality of life, not life-saving, in their scope. It is important to address questions regarding the physical, psychosocial and ethical risks and benefits of uterus transplantation for all three parties involved--the patient, the donor and the potential child--as well as discuss the regulatory implications as research on uterus transplantations moves forward. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions.

  11. Electricity-cost savings obtained by means of nuclear plant life extension

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Forest, L.; Fletcher, T.; DuCharme, A.; Harrison, D.L.

    1987-01-01

    This study examines savings caused by nuclear-plant life extension (NUPLEX) and describes the effects of changes in assumptions on costs and technology using an approach simpler than the large economic-model simulations used in other reports. Under the simplified approach, we estimate savings at the broad national level by comparing projected costs/kWh for the typical NUPLEX plant with those for new coal-fired plants, which seem the most likely alternative in most regions. While ignoring some complications handled by the large, regionally disaggregated econometric models, the approach used in this study has advantages in sensitivity analyses. It reveals relationships between savings and basic assumptions on costs and technology in a more transparent way than in large-model simulations. We find that, absent major technological breakthroughs for present generating options, NUPLEX saves consumers money on their electric bills under most plausible economic scenarios. Using mid-range assumptions, we find that NUPLEX saves consumers a total of about dollar 180 billion spread over the period 2010-50. Under optimistic assumptions, the savings swell to over dollar 900 billion. Under extremely pessimistic assumptions, the savings actually turn negative. This wide range of estimates largely reflects the uncertainty in cost projections. Within plausible limits, higher- or lower-than-expected load growth does not affect the savings estimates. The NUPLEX construction costs stand out as the most critical unknown. If they turn out to be 50% (dollar 500 billion) above the baseline estimate savings would fall by almost 60% (dollar 105 billion). A 50% rise in nuclear fuel costs would drop baseline savings by almost 22%. A 50% increase in nuclear-plant operations-and-maintenance costs, would cut baseline savings by about 36%. These sensitivities highlight the need for continued monitoring of economic developments

  12. Regulatory T-Cell Augmentation or Interleukin-17 Inhibition Prevents Calcineurin Inhibitor-Induced Hypertension in Mice.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chiasson, Valorie L; Pakanati, Abhinandan R; Hernandez, Marcos; Young, Kristina J; Bounds, Kelsey R; Mitchell, Brett M

    2017-07-01

    The immunosuppressive calcineurin inhibitors cyclosporine A and tacrolimus alter T-cell subsets and can cause hypertension, vascular dysfunction, and renal toxicity. We and others have reported that cyclosporine A and tacrolimus decrease anti-inflammatory regulatory T cells and increase proinflammatory interleukin-17-producing T cells; therefore, we hypothesized that inhibition of these effects using noncellular therapies would prevent the hypertension, endothelial dysfunction, and renal glomerular injury induced by calcineurin inhibitor therapy. Daily treatment of mice with cyclosporine A or tacrolimus for 1 week significantly decreased CD4 + /FoxP3 + regulatory T cells in the spleen and lymph nodes, as well as induced hypertension, vascular injury and dysfunction, and glomerular mesangial expansion in mice. Daily cotreatment with all-trans retinoic acid reported to increase regulatory T cells and decrease interleukin-17-producing T cells, prevented all of the detrimental effects of cyclosporine A and tacrolimus. All-trans retinoic acid also increased regulatory T cells and prevented the hypertension, endothelial dysfunction, and glomerular injury in genetically modified mice that phenocopy calcineurin inhibitor-treated mice (FKBP12-Tie2 knockout). Treatment with an interleukin-17-neutralizing antibody also increased regulatory T-cell levels and prevented the hypertension, endothelial dysfunction, and glomerular injury in cyclosporine A-treated and tacrolimus-treated mice and FKBP12-Tie2 knockout mice, whereas an isotype control had no effect. Augmenting regulatory T cells and inhibiting interleukin-17 signaling using noncellular therapies prevents the cardiovascular and renal toxicity of calcineurin inhibitors in mice. © 2017 American Heart Association, Inc.

  13. The modern water-saving agricultural technology: Progress and focus

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    GREGORY

    2010-09-13

    Sep 13, 2010 ... saving agricultural technology, which include modern biological water-saving technology, unconventional ... and innovation, water, nutrient migration theory, regula- .... urban sewage of more than 50%; Mexico City, 90% of.

  14. Politically Induced Regulatory Risk and Independent Regulatory Agencies

    OpenAIRE

    Strausz, Roland

    2015-01-01

    Uncertainty in election outcomes generates politically induced regulatory risk. Political parties' risk attitudes towards such risk depend on a fluctuation effect that hurts both parties and an output--expansion effect that benefits at least one party. Notwithstanding the parties' risk attitudes, political parties have incentives to negotiate away all regulatory risk by pre-electoral bargaining. Efficient pre-electoral bargaining outcomes fully eliminate politically induced regulatory risk. P...

  15. Evaluation of methods used to determine realized energy savings

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Boonekamp, Piet G.M.

    2006-01-01

    Most methods to determine realized total energy savings at national or sectoral level make choices, or neglect problems, which hamper the calculation of sound and useful energy-saving figures. Issues are the choice of the right aggregation level, the appropriate variables to construct a reference energy consumption trend, the energy quantities to be applied and interaction between various effects. Uncertainty margins for results lack in most presentations as well. This paper presents six methods, illustrates the adverse effects of certain choices and problems, and investigates how these methods deal with them. The methods are scored with respect to the issues mentioned above. Finally, a number of improvements are suggested, among which the use of final energy demand expressed in primary energy units, and bottom-up analyses at the level of real saving options. The last option is the more important, as it could provide top-down evaluation results (total savings from decomposition) as well as bottom-up policy monitoring results, both being crucial to new European energy-saving policy

  16. Testing hypotheses involving Cronbach's alpha using marginal models

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Kuijpers, R.E.; van der Ark, L.A.; Croon, M.A.

    2013-01-01

    We discuss the statistical testing of three relevant hypotheses involving Cronbach's alpha: one where alpha equals a particular criterion; a second testing the equality of two alpha coefficients for independent samples; and a third testing the equality of two alpha coefficients for dependent

  17. A Bayesian decision procedure for testing multiple hypotheses in DNA microarray experiments.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gómez-Villegas, Miguel A; Salazar, Isabel; Sanz, Luis

    2014-02-01

    DNA microarray experiments require the use of multiple hypothesis testing procedures because thousands of hypotheses are simultaneously tested. We deal with this problem from a Bayesian decision theory perspective. We propose a decision criterion based on an estimation of the number of false null hypotheses (FNH), taking as an error measure the proportion of the posterior expected number of false positives with respect to the estimated number of true null hypotheses. The methodology is applied to a Gaussian model when testing bilateral hypotheses. The procedure is illustrated with both simulated and real data examples and the results are compared to those obtained by the Bayes rule when an additive loss function is considered for each joint action and the generalized loss 0-1 function for each individual action. Our procedure significantly reduced the percentage of false negatives whereas the percentage of false positives remains at an acceptable level.

  18. Energy Savings From System Efficiency Improvements in Iowa's HVAC SAVE Program

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Yee, S. [Partnership for Advanced Residential Retrofit, Chicago, IL (United States); Baker, J. [Partnership for Advanced Residential Retrofit, Chicago, IL (United States); Brand, L. [Partnership for Advanced Residential Retrofit, Chicago, IL (United States); Wells, J. [Partnership for Advanced Residential Retrofit, Chicago, IL (United States)

    2013-08-01

    The objective of this project is to explore the energy savings potential of maximizing furnace and distribution system performance by adjusting operating, installation, and distribution conditions. The goal of the Iowa HVAC System Adjusted and Verified Efficiency (SAVE) program is to train contractors to measure installed system efficiency as a diagnostic tool to ensure that the homeowner achieves the energy reduction target for the home rather than simply performing a tune-up on the furnace or having a replacement furnace added to a leaky system. The PARR research team first examined baseline energy usage from a sample of 48 existing homes, before any repairs or adjustments were made, to calculate an average energy savings potential and to determine which system deficiencies were prevalent. The results of the baseline study of these homes found that, on average, about 10% of the space heating energy available from the furnace was not reaching the conditioned space. In the second part of the project, the team examined a sample of 10 homes that had completed the initial evaluation for more in-depth study. For these homes, the diagnostic data shows that it is possible to deliver up to 23% more energy from the furnace to the conditioned space by doing system tune ups with or without upgrading the furnace. Replacing the furnace provides additional energy reduction. The results support the author's belief that residential heating and cooling equipment should be tested and improved as a system rather than a collection of individual components.

  19. Energy Savings Potential and Research & Development Opportunities for Commercial Refrigeration

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    none,

    2009-09-01

    This study documents the energy consumption of commercial refrigeration equipment (CRE) in the U.S. and evaluated the energy savings potential of various technologies and energy efficiency measures that could be applied to such equipment. The study provided an overview of CRE applications, assessed the energy-savings potential of CRE in the U.S., outline key barriers to adoption of energy-savings technologies, and recommended opportunities for advanced energy saving technology research. The study was modeled after an earlier 1996 report by Arthur D. Little, Inc., and updated key information, examined more equipment types, and outlined long-term research and development opportunities.

  20. Saving Malta's music memory

    OpenAIRE

    Sant, Toni

    2013-01-01

    Maltese music is being lost. Along with it Malta loses its culture, way of life, and memories. Dr Toni Sant is trying to change this trend through the Malta Music Memory Project (M3P) http://www.um.edu.mt/think/saving-maltas-music-memory-2/

  1. Savings impact of a corporate energy manager

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sikorski, B.D.; O'Donnell, B.A.

    1999-01-01

    This paper discusses the cost savings impact of employing an energy manager with a 16,000-employee corporation. The corporation, Canada's second largest airline, is currently operating nearly 3,000,000 ft 2 of mixed-use facilities spread across the country, with an annual energy budget for ground facilities of over Cdn $4,000,000. This paper outlines the methodology used by the energy manager to deploy an energy management program over a two-year period between April 1995 and May 1997. The paper examines the successes and the lessons learned during the period and summarizes the costs and benefits of the program. The energy manager position was responsible for developing an energy history database with more than 100 active accounts and for monitoring and verifying energy savings. The energy manager implemented many relatively low-cost energy conservation measures, as well as some capital projects, during the first two years of the program. In total, these measures provided energy cost savings of $210,000 per year, or 5% of the total budget. In each case, technologies installed as part of the energy retrofit projects provided not only cost savings but also better control, reduced maintenance, and improved working conditions for employees

  2. Data-driven efficient score tests for deconvolution hypotheses

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Langovoy, M.

    2008-01-01

    We consider testing statistical hypotheses about densities of signals in deconvolution models. A new approach to this problem is proposed. We constructed score tests for the deconvolution density testing with the known noise density and efficient score tests for the case of unknown density. The

  3. Determinants of Household Savings in Turkey Except for Income

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mehmet ŞENGÜR

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Household has an extremely important place in the division of income for the economies. It plays a decisive role in personal consumption, investment, and savings. This study aims to identify the determinants of household savings except for income. In this study, "Household Budget Survey" conducted by Turkish Statistical Institute for the years 2002-2013 is used. Survey data has been analyzed by logistic regression models. The results of the study show that house ownership, having an extra house, having annual disposable income of over 10.000 ₺, education level also have a positive effect on household savings. On the other hand, the number of family members, car ownership, temporary or seasonal employment, and living in rural areas affect household savings in a negative way.

  4. Money in the bank : Feeling powerful increases saving

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Garbinsky, E.; Klesse, A.K.; Aaker, J.

    2014-01-01

    Across five studies, this research reveals that feeling powerful increases saving. This effect is driven by the desire to maintain one’s current state. When the purpose of saving is no longer to accumulate money but to spend it on a status-related product, the basic effect is reversed, and those who

  5. Planning a Sabbatical? These Tips Can Save Taxes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Matoney, Joseph P., Jr.; Weston, Marilyn

    1985-01-01

    Information on potential tax-saving opportunities when planning a sabbatical is provided for college personnel. Advice is offered about tax savings for: rental of the academician's personal residences while away from home, the home office deduction, use of an auto, and foreign income tax exclusion. The answer to what expenses are deductible…

  6. Quantification of energy savings from Ireland's Home Energy Saving scheme. An ex post billing analysis

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Scheer, J.; Clancy, M.; Ni Hogain, S. [Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, Wilton Park House, Wilton Terrace, Dublin 2 (Ireland)

    2013-02-15

    This paper quantifies the energy savings realised by a sample of participants in the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland's Home Energy Saving (HES) residential retrofit scheme (currently branded as the Better Energy Homes scheme), through an ex post billing analysis. The billing data are used to evaluate: (1) the reduction in gas consumption of the sample between pre- (2008) and post- (2010) scheme participation when compared to the gas consumption of a control group, (2) an estimate of the shortfall when this result is compared to engineering-type ex ante savings estimates and (3) the degree to which these results may apply to the wider population. All dwellings in the study underwent energy efficiency improvements, including insulation upgrades (wall and/or roof), installation of high-efficiency boilers and/or improved heating controls, as part of the HES scheme. Metered gas use data for the 210 households were obtained from meter operators for a number of years preceding dwelling upgrades and for a post-intervention period of 1 year. Dwelling characteristics and some household behavioural data were obtained through a survey of the sample. The gas network operator provided anonymised data on gas usage for 640,000 customers collected over the same period as the HES sample. Dwelling type data provided with the population dataset enabled matching with the HES sample to increase the internal validity of the comparison between the control (matched population data) and the treatment (HES sample). Using a difference-in-difference methodology, the change in demand of the sample was compared with that of the matched population subset of gas-using customers in Ireland over the same time period. The mean reduction in gas demand as a result of energy efficiency upgrades for the HES sample is estimated as 21 % or 3,664{+-}603 kWh between 2008 and 2010. An ex ante estimate of average energy savings, based on engineering calculations (u value reductions and improved boiler

  7. Effects of heat and electricity saving measures in district-heated multistory residential buildings

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Truong, Nguyen Le; Dodoo, Ambrose; Gustavsson, Leif

    2014-01-01

    Highlights: • We analyzed the potential for energy savings in district heated buildings. • Measures that reduce more peak load production give higher primary energy savings. • Efficient appliances increase heat demand but give net primary energy savings. • Efficient appliances give the largest net primary energy savings. - Abstract: The effects of heat and electricity saving measures in district-heated buildings can be complex because these depend not only on how energy is used on the demand side but also on how energy is provided from the supply side. In this study, we analyze the effects of heat and electricity saving measures in multistory concrete-framed and wood-framed versions of an existing district-heated building and examine the impacts of the reduced energy demand on different district heat (DH) production configurations. The energy saving measures considered are for domestic hot water reduction, building thermal envelope improvement, ventilation heat recovery (VHR), and household electricity savings. Our analysis is based on a measured heat load profile of an existing DH production system in Växjö, Sweden. Based on the measured heat load profile, we model three minimum-cost DH production system using plausible environmental and socio-political scenarios. Then, we investigate the primary energy implications of the energy saving measures applied to the two versions of the existing building, taking into account the changed DH demand, changed cogenerated electricity, and changed electricity use due to heat and electricity saving measures. Our results show that the difference between the final and primary energy savings of the concrete-framed and wood-framed versions of the case-study building is minor. The primary energy efficiency of the energy saving measures depends on the type of measure and on the composition of the DH production system. Of the various energy saving measures explored, electricity savings give the highest primary energy savings

  8. Foundational Tests of the Need-Support Model: A Framework for Bridging Regulatory Focus Theory and Self-Determination Theory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vaughn, Leigh Ann

    2017-03-01

    This article introduces the need-support model, which proposes that regulatory focus can affect subjective support for the needs proposed by self-determination theory (autonomy, competence, and relatedness), and support of these needs can affect subjective labeling of experiences as promotion-focused and prevention-focused. Three studies tested these hypotheses ( N = 2,114). Study 1 found that people recall more need support in promotion-focused experiences than in prevention-focused experiences, and need support in their day yesterday (with no particular regulatory focus) fell in between. Study 2 found that experiences of higher need support were more likely to be labeled as promotion-focused rather than prevention-focused, and that each need accounted for distinct variance in the labeling of experiences. Study 3 varied regulatory focus within a performance task and found that participants in the promotion condition engaged in need-support inflation, whereas participants in the prevention condition engaged in need-support deflation. Directions for future research are discussed.

  9. Energy savings for solar heating systems; Solvarmeanlaegs energibesparelser

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Furbo, S.; Fan, J.

    2011-01-15

    Energy savings for a number of new solar heating systems in one family houses have been determined by means of information on the energy consumption of the houses before and after installation of the solar heating systems. The investigated solar heating systems are marketed by Velux Danmark A/S, Sonnnenkraft Scandinavia A/S and Batec Solvarme A/S. Solar domestic hot water systems as well as solar combi systems are included in the investigations The houses have different auxiliary energy supply systems: Natural gas boilers, oil fired burners, electrical heating and district heating. Some of the houses have a second auxiliary energy supply system. The collector areas vary from 1.83 m{sup 2} to 9.28 m{sup 2}. Some of the solar heating systems are based on energy units with a new integrated natural gas boiler and a heat storage for the solar heating system. The existing energy systems in the houses are for most of the houses used as the auxiliary energy systems for the solar heating systems. The yearly energy savings for the houses where the only change is the installation of the solar heating system vary from 300 kWh per m{sup 2} solar collector to 1300 kWh per m{sup 2} solar collector. The average yearly energy savings is about 670 kWh per m{sup 2} solar collector for these solar heating systems. The energy savings per m{sup 2} solar collector are not influenced by the solar heating system type, the company marketing the system, the auxiliary energy supply system, the collector area, the collector tilt, the collector azimuth, the energy consumption of the house or the location of the house. The yearly energy savings for the houses with solar heating systems based on energy units including a new natural gas boiler vary from 790 kWh per m{sup 2} solar collector to 2090 kWh per m{sup 2} solar collector. The average yearly energy savings is about 1520 kWh per m{sup 2} solar collector for these solar heating systems. The energy savings per m{sup 2} solar collector for

  10. 12 CFR 584.4 - Certain acquisitions by savings and loan holding companies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 12 Banks and Banking 5 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Certain acquisitions by savings and loan... TREASURY SAVINGS AND LOAN HOLDING COMPANIES § 584.4 Certain acquisitions by savings and loan holding companies. (a) Acquisitions by a savings and loan holding company of more than five percent of a non...

  11. Toward Valid Measurement of Stephen Pepper's World Hypotheses.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Johnson, John A.

    Two measures of the "world hypotheses" of Stephen Pepper were mailed to 100 sociobiologists, 87 behaviorists, 79 personality psychologists, and 45 human developmentalists. The World Hypothesis Scale (WHS) was designed to measure Pepper's four world views: (1) formism; (2) mechanism; (3) organicism; and (4) contextualism. The…

  12. Savings serving energy transition Green finance: a powerful and citizen-oriented tool. Working paper no. 11

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Vergne, Frederique; Kerhoas, Mailys; Lety, Benoit; Lutzky, Ana

    2015-06-01

    the earmarking of savings to energy transition funding. To take all these elements into account, this measure will be completed by a series of regulatory, tax and incentive provisions favouring the possession of 'green' products: establishing a tax system approving individuals' green savings, rallying institutional investors and recognizing climate as a systemic risk in regulations

  13. Dynamic analysis of savings and economic growth in Nigeria ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Dynamic analysis of savings and economic growth in Nigeria. ... a trivariate dynamic Granger causality model with savings, economic growth and foreign ... It is recommended that in the short run, policies in Nigeria should be geared towards ...

  14. Daylight Saving Time Transitions and Road Traffic Accidents

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tuuli Lahti

    2010-01-01

    Full Text Available Circadian rhythm disruptions may have harmful impacts on health. Circadian rhythm disruptions caused by jet lag compromise the quality and amount of sleep and may lead to a variety of symptoms such as fatigue, headache, and loss of attention and alertness. Even a minor change in time schedule may cause considerable stress for the body. Transitions into and out of daylight saving time alter the social and environmental timing twice a year. According to earlier studies, this change in time-schedule leads to sleep disruption and fragmentation of the circadian rhythm. Since sleep deprivation decreases motivation, attention, and alertness, transitions into and out of daylight saving time may increase the amount of accidents during the following days after the transition. We studied the amount of road traffic accidents one week before and one week after transitions into and out of daylight saving time during years from 1981 to 2006. Our results demonstrated that transitions into and out of daylight saving time did not increase the number of traffic road accidents.

  15. FINANCIAL SITUATION AND ATTITUDES TOWARDS SAVING IN POLISH SOCIETY:EVIDENCE FROM MICRO DATA

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    ANETA MARIA KŁOPOCKA

    2014-05-01

    Full Text Available Savings of the household sector are undoubtedly very important both in terms of micro- (for the optimum personal finance management and macroeconomics (from the perspective of the economic growth. Furthermore, the major transformation has occurred in the household saving behavior in Poland in recent years. This is due to sharp changes in the functioning of the households in the period of economic transformation and is the result of the global financial and economic crisis. This paper provides empirical evidence of the complex interrelations of income, level of optimism/pessimism, attitudes towards saving and households' consumption–savings decisions. There is a strong income and savings relationship due to the positive income effect on the household saving propensity (through the increased motivation and the long run planning acceptance and the saving ability due to ample satisfaction of household consumption needs. Higher income leads to the self-restraint rejection. The level of household optimism/pessimism exerts a substantial effect on the saving motives and attitudes towards saving. The decreasing expectations leads to the slope of the overall saving motivation. Moreover pessimists seem to reveal the lowest inclination to deliberate saving. Simultaneously, they seem to be most suspicious about the bank loan incurring. The level of optimism is positively associated with both the share of savers and the level of accumulated savings.

  16. Do Medicaid home and community based service waivers save money?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Harrington, Charlene; Ng, Terence; Kitchener, Martin

    2011-10-01

    This article estimates the potential savings to the Medicaid program of using 1915c Home and Community Based Services (HCBS) waivers rather than institutional care. For Medicaid HCBS waiver expenditures of $25 billion in 2006, we estimate the national savings to be over $57 billion, or $57,338 per waiver participant in 2006 compared with the cost of Medicaid institutional care (for which all waiver participants are eligible). When taking into account a potential 50% "woodwork effect" (for people who might have refused institutional services), the saving would be $21 billion. This analysis demonstrates that HCBS waiver programs present significant direct financial savings to Medicaid long-term care (LTC) programs.

  17. Winglets Save Billions of Dollars in Fuel Costs

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    The upturned ends now featured on many airplane wings are saving airlines billions of dollars in fuel costs. Called winglets, the drag-reducing technology was advanced through the research of Langley Research Center engineer Richard Whitcomb and through flight tests conducted at Dryden Flight Research Center. Seattle-based Aviation Partners Boeing -- a partnership between Aviation Partners Inc., of Seattle, and The Boeing Company, of Chicago -- manufactures Blended Winglets, a unique design featured on Boeing aircraft around the world. These winglets have saved more than 2 billion gallons of jet fuel to date, representing a cost savings of more than $4 billion and a reduction of almost 21.5 million tons in carbon dioxide emissions.

  18. 76 FR 2029 - Small Business Investment Companies-Energy Saving Qualified Investments

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-01-12

    ... 3245-AF86 Small Business Investment Companies--Energy Saving Qualified Investments AGENCY: U.S. Small... Administration (SBA) is setting forth the new defined terms, ``Energy Saving Qualified Investment'' and ``Energy Saving Activities'', for the Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) Program. The new definitions are...

  19. 10 CFR 436.21 - Savings-to-investment ratio.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... is the ratio of the present value savings to the present value costs of an energy or water conservation measure. The numerator of the ratio is the present value of net savings in energy or water and non... conservation measure. The denominator of the ratio is the present value of the net increase in investment and...

  20. Restoring Hope: You Can Help Save A Life

    Science.gov (United States)

    Department of Defense Submit Search Restoring Hope Sep. 1, 2010 You Can Help Save A Life More Focus Needed to of Staff Videos Pentagon Channel Restoring Hope: 90 min. Special - Part 1 | Part 2 More Pentagon Prevention Month: Marine Corps Team Helps Save Lives. I Will Never Quit on Life Sept.8, 2010 - Mrs. Mullen on

  1. Analysis of interactions among the barriers to energy saving in China

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wang Guohong; Wang Yunxia; Zhao Tao

    2008-01-01

    Since China became the second largest energy consumer and carbon dioxide emitter, the problem of energy consumption and environmental pollution has drawn the world's attention. Meanwhile, Chinese government has put high emphasis on the problem. One project of energy saving initiated by Chinese government has been put into practice. However, many difficulties need to be dealt with to meet the expected aim of social development. The objective of this article is to investigate the interactions among the major barriers which prevent the practice of energy saving in China. Obviously, a clear definition of relationships among the barriers to energy saving helps top leaders make relevant decisions to solve the problem of economic sustainability, energy security and environment pollution in the future. To date, studies specifying energy-saving barriers have often focused on analyzing these barriers separately. As a result, a holistic view in understanding the barriers to energy-saving project is lacking. Interpretive structural modeling (ISM) is utilized to summarize the critical barriers hindering the project of energy saving in China and to explain the interrelationships among them. Suggestions for energy-saving practice and future research are provided

  2. What Is the Problem of Ad Hoc Hypotheses?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bamford, Greg

    1999-01-01

    Philosophers' attempts to convincingly explicate the received view of an ad hoc hypothesis--that it accounts for only the observations it was designed to account for--have been unsuccessful. Familiar and firmer criteria for evaluating the hypotheses or modified theories so classified are characteristically available. Contains 41 references.…

  3. An energy saving system for hospital laundries

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Katsanis, J.S.; Tsarabaris, P.T.; Polykrati, A.D.; Proios, A.N. [National Technical Univ. of Athens, Athens (Greece). School of Electrical and Computer Engineering; Koufakis, E.I. [Public Power Corp. S.A., Crete (Greece)

    2009-07-01

    Hospital laundries are one of the largest consumers of water and electrical and thermal energy. This paper examined the energy savings achieved by a system using the hot wastewater from the washing process. Hospital laundries consume thermal energy using steam, which is produced in boilers by burning diesel oil or natural gas. Electrical energy for the mechanical drives, ventilation and also the lighting required in the laundry area are big consumers of energy. The paper presented the proposed system and discussed the parameters of the system and system dimensioning. The paper also provided and discussed an interpretation of steam and energy savings. The proposed system was considered to be economically viable, simple in its construction, installation and operation. From the application of the suggested system, the cost savings resulted in a satisfactory payback period for the capital invested of approximately three to five years. 14 refs., 4 tabs., 2 figs.

  4. Gait and electromyographic analysis of patients recovering after limb-saving surgery

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    De Visser, E; Mulder, T; Schreuder, HWB; Veth, RPH; Duysens, J

    2000-01-01

    Objective. Control of gait after limb-saving surgery. Design. Case series study. Background. At the moment little is known about adaptations in patients' gait after limb-saving surgery. Methods. Nineteen patients who underwent limb-saving surgery at least 1 yr earlier and 10 normal subjects were

  5. 75 FR 22681 - Prohibited Service at Savings and Loan Holding Companies

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-29

    ... DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY Office of Thrift Supervision Prohibited Service at Savings and Loan... concerning the following information collection: Title of Proposal: Prohibited Service at Savings and Loan... with a savings and loan holding company (SLHC), the SLHC or the individual will need to apply to the...

  6. 48 CFR 809.270 - Qualified products for convenience/labor-saving foods.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... convenience/labor-saving foods. 809.270 Section 809.270 Federal Acquisition Regulations System DEPARTMENT OF... 809.270 Qualified products for convenience/labor-saving foods. (a) Each VISN Nutrition and Food Service representative is authorized to establish a common VISN QPL for convenience and labor-saving foods...

  7. Energy savings in Polish buildings

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Markel, L.C.; Gula, A.; Reeves, G.

    1995-12-31

    A demonstration of low-cost insulation and weatherization techniques was a part of phase 1 of the Krakow Clean Fossil Fuels and Energy Efficient Project. The objectives were to identify a cost-effective set of measures to reduce energy used for space heating, determine how much energy could be saved, and foster widespread implementation of those measures. The demonstration project focused on 4 11-story buildings in a Krakow housing cooperative. Energy savings of over 20% were obtained. Most important, the procedures and materials implemented in the demonstration project have been adapted to Polish conditions and applied to other housing cooperatives, schools, and hospitals. Additional projects are being planned, in Krakow and other cities, under the direction of FEWE-Krakow, the Polish Energie Cities Network, and Biuro Rozwoju Krakowa.

  8. Gun control saves lives

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    gun control legislation. One study estimated that more than 4 500 lives were saved across five SA cities from 2001 to 2005.[5] Pro-gun interest groups seeking to promote gun ownership and diffusion have attacked these findings, suggesting that stricter gun control was only enacted in 2004 following the publication of ...

  9. Contributions of Qualitative Research to Understanding Savings for Children and Youth

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sherraden, Margaret; Peters, Clark; Wagner, Kristen; Guo, Baorong; Clancy, Margaret

    2013-01-01

    This paper explores contributions of qualitative research to saving theory for children, youth, and parents in children's development account (CDAs) programs. It brings together findings from three studies: (1) elementary school age children saving for college, (2) youth transitioning from foster care saving for education and other purposes, and…

  10. Active vs. Passive Decisions and Crowdout in Retirement Savings Accounts: Evidence from Denmark

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nielsen, Torben Heien; Leth-Petersen, Søren; Chetty, Raj

    2012-01-01

    Do retirement savings policies – such as tax subsidies or employer-provided pension plans – increase total saving for retirement or simply induce shifting across accounts? We revisit this classic question using 45 million observations on savings for the population of Denmark. We find that a policy......'s impact on total savings depends critically on whether it changes savings rates by active or passive choice. Tax subsidies, which rely upon individuals to take an action to raise savings, have small impacts on total wealth. We estimate that each $1 of tax expenditure on subsidies increases total saving...... by 1 cent. In contrast, policies that raise savings automatically even if individuals take no action – such as employer-provided pensions or automatic contributions to retirement accounts – increase wealth accumulation substantially. Price subsidies only affect the behavior of active savers who respond...

  11. Strengthening Regulatory Competence in a Changing Nuclear Regulatory Environment

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Illizastigui, P.F.

    2016-01-01

    The paper addresses the approach followed by the Cuban National Center for Nuclear Safety for the management of current and new competences of its regulatory staff with the aim of allowing those staff to effectively fulfill their core regulatory functions. The approach is realized through an Integrated System for Competence Building, which is based on the IAEA recommendations, shown to be effective in ensuring the necessary competence in the relevant areas. In the author’s opinion, competence of the regulatory staff in the area of human and organizational factors is of paramount importance and needs to be further strengthened in order to be able to assess safety performance at the facilities and detect early signs of deteriorating safety performance. The former is defined by the author as the core regulatory function “Analysis” which covers the entire spectrum of assessment tasks carried out by the regulatory staff to: a) detect declining safety performance, b) diagnose latent weaknesses (root causes) and c) make effective safety culture interventions. The author suggests that competence associated with the fulfillment of the analysis function is distinctly identified and dealt with separately in the current system of managing regulatory competence. (author)

  12. Estimated Incident Cost Savings in Shipping Due to Inspections

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    S. Knapp (Sabine); G.E. Bijwaard (Govert); C. Heij (Christiaan)

    2010-01-01

    textabstractThe effectiveness of safety inspections has been analysed from various angles, but until now, relatively little attention has been given to translate risk reduction into incident cost savings. This paper quantifies estimated cost savings based on port state control inspections and

  13. Black/White Differences in Adolescent Drug Use: A Test of Six Hypotheses

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rote, Sunshine M.; Taylor, John

    2014-01-01

    Six specific hypotheses have been developed to account for why Caucasians have higher rates of drug use compared to African-Americans. This article utilizes data from a South Florida-based community study of 893 young adults (1998-2002) to test these hypotheses. Specifically, Caucasians (1) initiate drug use at younger ages than African-Americans…

  14. The value of business travel time savings

    OpenAIRE

    Fowkes, A.S.; Marks, P.; Nash, C.A.

    1986-01-01

    The value of time savings for business travellers forms a sizeable part of the benefits from trunk road, rail and air transport improvement schemes. It is therefore important to possess appropiate values to place on business travel time savings for evaluation purposes. The normal approach in practice is to adopt the wage rate of the workers in question plus an increment for overheads and non-wage payments. \\ud \\ud In this paper criticisms of this approach are discssed and the implications of ...

  15. The impact on energy consumption of daylight saving clock changes

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Hill, S.I.; Desobry, F. [Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge (United Kingdom); Garnsey, E.W. [Institute for Manufacturing, University of Cambridge (United Kingdom); Chong, Y.-F. [IPA Energy and Water Consulting (United Kingdom)

    2010-09-15

    The focus of this work is an investigation of the effect of prevailing time regime on energy consumption. In particular we perform analysis demonstrating potential energy savings which could be obtained were Great Britain to maintain daylight savings time (DST) over winter, instead of reverting to Greenwich mean time (GMT). We review the literature on the effect of DST on energy consumption and show that this indicates a justification for considering the issue. Our headline result is in agreement with many related studies in that advancing the clock by an hour in winter would lead to energy savings of at least 0.3% of daily demand in Great Britain. In deriving this result we have adopted methodologies currently used in load prediction, in particular Support Vector Regression, to estimate energy demand on a half-hourly basis. Corresponding cost savings are found to be higher (due to the nonlinear increase of costs) and we find them to be on the order of 0.6% over the months considered. In terms of environmental impact we find the saving to be approximately equivalent to 450,000 ton of CO{sub 2}. In deriving these results we adopt a conservative approach such that we consider them lower bounds on any true savings. (author)

  16. The impact on energy consumption of daylight saving clock changes

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hill, S.I.; Desobry, F.; Garnsey, E.W.; Chong, Y.-F.

    2010-01-01

    The focus of this work is an investigation of the effect of prevailing time regime on energy consumption. In particular we perform analysis demonstrating potential energy savings which could be obtained were Great Britain to maintain daylight savings time (DST) over winter, instead of reverting to Greenwich mean time (GMT). We review the literature on the effect of DST on energy consumption and show that this indicates a justification for considering the issue. Our headline result is in agreement with many related studies in that advancing the clock by an hour in winter would lead to energy savings of at least 0.3% of daily demand in Great Britain. In deriving this result we have adopted methodologies currently used in load prediction, in particular Support Vector Regression, to estimate energy demand on a half-hourly basis. Corresponding cost savings are found to be higher (due to the nonlinear increase of costs) and we find them to be on the order of 0.6% over the months considered. In terms of environmental impact we find the saving to be approximately equivalent to 450,000 ton of CO 2 . In deriving these results we adopt a conservative approach such that we consider them lower bounds on any true savings.

  17. Enersave API: Android-based power-saving framework for mobile devices

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    A.M. Muharum

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available Power consumption is a major factor to be taken into consideration when using mobile devices in the IoT field. Good Power management requires proper understanding of the way in which it is being consumed by the end-devices. This paper is a continuation of the work in Ref. [1] and proposes an energy saving API for the Android Operating System in order to help developers turn their applications into energy-aware ones. The main features heavily used for building smart applications, greatly impact battery life of Android devices and which have been taken into consideration are: Screen brightness, Colour scheme, CPU frequency, 2G/3G network, Maps, Low power localisation, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. The assessment of the power-saving API has been performed on real Android devices and also compared to the most powerful power-saving applications – DU Battery Saver and Battery Saver 2016 – currently available on the Android market. Comparisons demonstrate that the Enersave API has a significant impact on power saving when incorporated in android applications. While DU Battery Saver and Battery Saver 2016 help saving 22.2% and 40.5% of the battery power respectively, the incorporation of the Enersave API in android applications can help save 84.6% of battery power.

  18. Systems analysis of transcriptome data provides new hypotheses about Arabidopsis root response to nitrate treatments

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Javier eCanales

    2014-02-01

    Full Text Available Nitrogen (N is an essential macronutrient for plant growth and development. Plants adapt to changes in N availability partly by changes in global gene expression. We integrated publicly available root microarray data under contrasting nitrate conditions to identify new genes and functions important for adaptive nitrate responses in Arabidopsis thaliana roots. Overall, more than two thousand genes exhibited changes in expression in response to nitrate treatments in Arabidopsis thaliana root organs. Global regulation of gene expression by nitrate depends largely on the experimental context. However, despite significant differences from experiment to experiment in the identity of regulated genes, there is a robust nitrate response of specific biological functions. Integrative gene network analysis uncovered relationships between nitrate-responsive genes and eleven highly co-expressed gene clusters (modules. Four of these gene network modules have robust nitrate responsive functions such as transport, signaling and metabolism. Network analysis hypothesized G2-like transcription factors are key regulatory factors controlling transport and signaling functions. Our meta-analysis highlights the role of biological processes not studied before in the context of the nitrate response such as root hair development and provides testable hypothesis to advance our understanding of nitrate responses in plants.

  19. Measured energy savings and cost-effectiveness of conservation retrofits in commercial buildings

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Greely, K.M.; Harris, J.P.; Hatcher, A.M.

    1990-01-01

    In this study, the authors examine the measured savings and cost-effectiveness of 447 commercial retrofit projects in the US, Canada, and Europe, representing over 1,700 buildings. For these projects, they examine savings and cost-effectiveness by building type and retrofit strategy, savings from individual measures, peak electric demand savings, comparisons of measured vs. predicted savings, and the persistence of savings in the years following a retrofit. Median annual site energy savings amounted to 20 kBtu/ft 2 , or 18% of whole-building usage; median retrofit cost was $0.56/ft 2 (1988 $), the median payback time was 3.1 years, and the median cost of conserved energy was $3.10/site MBtu. When examined by retrofit strategy, they found that projects with only HVAC and/or lighting retrofits had median payback times of one to three years, while those affecting the building shell, either alone or in combination with other types of measures, had payback times of five or more years. Projects in which only maintenance practices were changed typically saved 12% of their pre-retrofit consumption, often using in-house labor. Their research suggests that, despite significant savings and short payback times for the majority of projects, optimum savings are often not being achieved, due to limited owner willingness to invest in all cost-effective measures, as well as to improper retrofit installation and/or maintenance. A comprehensive understanding of energy management as a process is needed, including both inspection and commissioning of installed retrofits and ongoing tracking of energy consumption as an indicator of operating problems

  20. Do Tax Incentives for Saving in Pension Accounts Cause Debt Accumulation?

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Yde Andersen, Henrik

    Measuring the effect of an unanticipated reduction in tax credits on pension savings, this paper shows that individuals tend to make extraordinary repayments on their debt when saving in retirement accounts becomes less attractive. We conclude that tax-favoured retirement accounts could affect...... gross debt accumulation. In line with recent studies, we show that tax subsidies for saving in pension accounts only affect total individual savings to a limited extent, but unlike prior research this paper distinguishes between the effects on financial assets and liabilities. As a particular feature...

  1. Energy Saving Scheme Based On Traffic Forwarding For Optical Fiber Access Networks

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Lopez, G. Arturo Rodes; Estaran Tolosa, Jose Manuel; Vegas Olmos, Juan José

    2013-01-01

    We report on an energy saving block that regroups and powers off OLTs during low traffic periods, resulting in energy savings up to 87,5% in the central office of optical access networks.......We report on an energy saving block that regroups and powers off OLTs during low traffic periods, resulting in energy savings up to 87,5% in the central office of optical access networks....

  2. Energy-saving methodology for material handling applications

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Makris, P.A.; Makri, A.P.; Provatidis, C.G. [National Technical University of Athens, School of Mechanical Engineering, Mechanical Design and Control Systems Division, 9 Iroon Polytechniou Street, Zografou Campus, GR-15773 Athens (Greece)

    2006-10-15

    This paper presents an energy saving approach to the problem of order picking in warehousing environment, which is directly related to the well-known Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP). While the available heuristic algorithms for the order-picking problem search for the route that minimizes the travel time, here the problem is addressed from the energy saving point of view. In a few words, the least energy-consuming route is identified in order to quantify the trade off in time and energy between the fastest route and the most energy economic one. Keeping in mind that often energy is as important as time, especially during a low-demand period, the current paper sheds some light into a two dimensional way of addressing the warehouse material handling problem, which saves time as well as energy. A very interesting finding is that a relatively small loss of service time in many cases may lead to a significant decrease of consumed energy without any additional cost. (author)

  3. Income inequality, status seeking, and savings rates in Canada

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alexander Bilson Darku

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available This paper uses Canadian provincial-level data and a variant of James uesenberry’s relative income hypothesis proposed by Frank et al. (2010 to examine the relationship between income inequality and savings rates. The theory predicts that increased expenditure of top income earners leads those just below them in the income scale to spend more as well, then the next group also spends more, and so on. This phenomenon is due to people’s status seeking behaviour. Hence, increased income inequality will trigger increases in consumption by individuals in all income groups, which in turn leads to declining personal savings rates. The empirical analysis based on this theory led to some interesting findings. First, at the national level, increased income inequality has a significant negative effect on personal savings rates. At the provincial level, the relationship also emerges in eight of ten provinces. Second, both the national and provincial results imply that growth in per capita income that worsens income inequality impacts negatively on personal savings rates. I interpret the results as evidence that social factors such as status-seeking generate consumption interdependence and are significant determinants of consumption and savings decisions of Canadians.

  4. Energy saving behaviours: Development of a practice-based model

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sweeney, Jillian C.; Kresling, Johannes; Webb, Dave; Soutar, Geoffrey N.; Mazzarol, Tim

    2013-01-01

    Financial pressure and concern for the environment has meant many consumers are aware of the need to reduce their consumption of many resources, including energy, which is the focus of the present study. While potential energy use deterrents in the form of access constraints and price increases are forms of extrinsic control, it is not clear how effective these are at reducing consumption and, indeed, it is not clear if such measures are consistent with people's underlying energy saving motivations. Beyond behavioural motivations, people's desires to reduce energy can be thwarted (barriers) and/or supported by a variety of factors, some within their control, while others are perhaps less so. Using a practice-based framework and a qualitative focus group approach, this study presents an exploratory study of these issues. Policy suggestions for overcoming barriers, as well suggestions as to how energy saving behaviours can be supported are offered. - Highlights: • We obtained consumers views about energy saving motivations, barriers and support. • Attitudes towards energy saving are not sufficient to change behaviours. • A practice-based approach to understanding energy saving behaviours is applied. • A practice-based energy-cultures framework (PBECF) is developed. • Barriers and support factors are identified that can be conceptualised within a PBECF

  5. Saving Grace - A Climate Change Documentary Education Program

    Science.gov (United States)

    Byrne, J. M.; McDaniel, S.; Graham, J.; Little, L.; Hoggan, J. C.

    2012-12-01

    Saving Grace conveys climate change knowledge from the best international scientists and social scientists using a series of new media formats. An Education and Communication Plan (ECP) has been developed to disseminate climate change knowledge on impacts, mitigation and adaptation for individuals, and for all sectors of society. The research team is seeking contacts with science and social science colleagues around the world to provide the knowledge base for the ECP. Poverty enslaves…and climate change has, and will, spread and deepen poverty to hundreds of millions of people, primarily in the developing world. And make no mistake; we are enslaving hundreds of millions of people in a depressing and debilitating poverty that in numbers will far surpass the horrors of the slave trade of past centuries. Saving Grace is the story of that poverty - and minimizing that poverty. Saving Grace stars the best of the world's climate researchers. Saving Grace presents the science; who, where and why of greenhouse gases that drive climate change; current and projected impacts of a changing climate around the world; and most important, solutions to the climate change challenges we face.

  6. Determinants and policy implications for household electricity-saving behaviour: Evidence from Beijing, China

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wang Zhaohua; Zhang Bin; Yin Jianhua; Zhang Yixiang

    2011-01-01

    This research sets out to explore the possibilities for further saving in household electricity consumption through a study of the residents' willingness and behavioural characteristics in electricity saving, as applied within a Chinese context. Based on an extensive literature review, the authors argue that economic benefits, policy and social norms, and past experience may have a positive correlation with household electricity-saving behaviour, while the discomfort caused by electricity-saving activities, may exert a negative effect on it. Through a sample of 816 randomly selected residents in Beijing, the propositions are examined using logit regression analysis. The conclusions support the ideas, concerning both the positive influence of economic benefits, policy and social norms, and past experience as they affect broader electricity-saving behaviour, and the negative influence of the discomfort caused by electricity-saving activities. Finally, some inferences are drawn, and suggestions are offered for policy makers and further studies. - Highlights: → We develop a logistic regression to investigate household electricity saving behaviour. → Determinants for household electricity saving are verified with a questionnaire survey. → Environmental awareness does not impact on household electricity saving directly. → It is prerequisite to focus on both financial subsidy and technology improvement. → Tiered price reform is considered an effective policy for electricity saving.

  7. A Note on Causal Relationship between FDI and Savings in Bangladesh

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mohammad SALAHUDDIN

    2010-11-01

    Full Text Available This paper aims to investigate the causal relationship between foreign direct investment and gross domestic savings in Bangladesh over a period of 1985-2007. In doing so, Johansen cointegration technique and error correction methods are employed to examine the long run and short run relationship between foreign direct investment and gross domestic savings. To determine the direction of causality, we used innovation accounting approach. Results suggest that there exist bi-directional causal relationship between foreign direct investment and gross domestic savings but the movement is stronger from domestic savings to foreign direct investment. The result also implies complimentary relationship between them and as such, policy makers in Bangladesh need to focus on the determinants of both FDI and domestic savings in order to accelerate its growth.

  8. District energy-saving visions for Town of Towa; Towa machi chiiki sho energy vision

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    NONE

    2001-02-01

    The energy-saving visions are drawn for Town of Towa, Iwate Pref., to promote energy saving and abatement of gas emissions which cause global warming. The priority projects in the energy-saving visions include introduction of energy-saving type vehicles, houses/buildings, illuminators; introduction of solar energy utilization systems and alternative energy (e.g., wood, wastes from domestic animals and microhydroelectric power generation); and monitoring/observation of energy consumption situations and energy-saving education. The energy-saving target is set at 3,120kL as crude oil. The energy-saving activities studied for the administrative and public sectors include introduction of energy-saving type vehicles and buildings; introduction of solar energy utilization systems (for roads and public facilities when they are replaced) and microhydroelectric power generation; and monitoring/observation of energy consumption situations and energy-saving education. The energy-saving target is set at 80kL as crude oil. (NEDO)

  9. Regulatory networks, legal federalism, and multi-level regulatory systems

    OpenAIRE

    Kerber, Wolfgang; Wendel, Julia

    2016-01-01

    Transnational regulatory networks play important roles in multi-level regulatory regimes, as e.g, the European Union. In this paper we analyze the role of regulatory networks from the perspective of the economic theory of legal federalism. Often sophisticated intermediate institutional solutions between pure centralisation and pure decentralisation can help to solve complex tradeoff problems between the benefits and problems of centralised and decentralised solutions. Drawing upon the insight...

  10. Water Saving Strategies & Ecological Modernisation

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hoffmann, Birgitte; Jensen, Jesper Ole; Elle, Morten

    2005-01-01

    Drawing on case studies of water saving campaigns and new collaborations, the pa-per will serve, on the one hand, as an interpretation of the water saving strategy in Co-penhagen in the light of Ecological Modernisation, and on the other hand, as a critical discussion of Ecological Modernisation...... as a frame for understanding resource manage-ment. The water management in Copenhagen has in recent years undergone a rather radi-cal transition. Along with strong drivers for resource management in the region the mu-nicipal water supplier has tested and implemented a number of initiatives to promote sus...... to 125 l/capita/day in 2002. A series of different strategies, targets and tools have been implemented: Emphasizing demand side instead of supply side, using and communicating indicators, formulating goals for reducing water consumption and developing learning processes in water management. A main...

  11. 77 FR 213 - United States Savings Bonds, Series EE and I

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-01-04

    ... savings bonds and $10,000 for Series I savings bonds. (b) Bonds purchased or transferred as gifts will be... are delivered to the recipient. (c) Bonds purchased as gifts or in a fiduciary capacity are not... Series I savings bonds a person may acquire each year. Prior to this change, an investor could purchase...

  12. An analysis of the inter-relationship between savings product usage ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    products such as savings accounts, money market investments and fixed deposits ... financial services, satisfaction, SERVQUAL, marginal utility, savings ... they were being exploited by their financial advisors, who were receiving commission.

  13. Savings in its sights for Somerset Trust.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Russell, Colin

    2011-10-01

    Colin Russell, healthcare specialist at Schneider Electric (pictured), explains how the company has recently worked with Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust to implement a major energy-saving project at the Trust's Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton. He argues that, at a time when all areas of the service are being asked to reduce costs, such partnerships can potentially save the institution millions of pounds and significantly reduce carbon emissions, while "revitalising" parts of the NHS estate, and ensuring continuity of vital hospital services for facilities managers.

  14. Statutory Rewards to Environmental Self-Auditing: Do They Reduce Pollution and Save Regulatory Costs? Evidence from a Cross-State Panel

    OpenAIRE

    Guerrero, Santiago; Innes, Robert

    2008-01-01

    State-level statutes provide firms that engage in environmental self-audits, and that self-report their environmental violations, with a variety of different regulatory rewards, including "immunity" from penalties and "privilege" for information contained in self-audits. This paper studies a panel of State-level industries from 1989-2003, in order to determine the effects of the different statutes on toxic pollution and government inspections. We find that, by encouraging self-auditing, privi...

  15. Twelve testable hypotheses on the geobiology of weathering

    Science.gov (United States)

    S.L. Brantley; J.P. Megonigal; F.N. Scatena; Z. Balogh-Brunstad; R.T. Barnes; M.A. Bruns; P. van Cappelen; K. Dontsova; H.E. Hartnett; A.S. Hartshorn; A. Heimsath; E. Herndon; L. Jin; C.K. Keller; J.R. Leake; W.H. McDowell; F.C. Meinzer; T.J. Mozdzer; S. Petsch; J. Pett-Ridge; K.S. Pretziger; P.A. Raymond; C.S. Riebe; K. Shumaker; A. Sutton-Grier; R. Walter; K. Yoo

    2011-01-01

    Critical Zone (CZ) research investigates the chemical, physical, and biological processes that modulate the Earth's surface. Here, we advance 12 hypotheses that must be tested to improve our understanding of the CZ: (1) Solar-to-chemical conversion of energy by plants regulates flows of carbon, water, and nutrients through plant-microbe soil networks, thereby...

  16. Finally clarity when energy saving; Endlich Klarheit beim Energiesparen

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Anon.

    2012-07-01

    How much money do users in mechanical engineering and plant construction save in the implementation of energy efficiency measures? What actions bring which savings? Festo AG and Co. KG (Esslingen, Federal Republic of Germany) provides answers to these questions in terms of the pneumatic control system.

  17. Estimated incident cost savings in shipping due to inspections

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Knapp, S.; Bijwaard, G.E.; Heij, C.

    2011-01-01

    The effectiveness of safety inspections of ships has been analysed from various angles, but until now, relatively little attention has been given to translate risk reduction into incident cost savings. This paper provides a monetary quantification of the cost savings that can be attributed to port

  18. Action Program for Implementing Heat Savings in Greater Copenhagen

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nørgaard, Jørgen; Karlsson, Kenneth; Engell, Thomas

    1998-01-01

    This main report summarized the content of the three sub-report of the project, including the background for the project, the potentails for saving heat and the barriers for implementing these savings. Afterwards the report define the geographical area considered, as well as the present situation...

  19. The modern water-saving agricultural technology: Progress and focus

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Based on the analysis of water-saving agricultural technology development status and trends in China, and in combination with the development and the needs of modern water-saving agricultural technology, we have put forward a future research emphasis and developing direction of modern watersaving agricultural ...

  20. Save Our Water Resources.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bromley, Albert W.

    The purpose of this booklet, developed as part of Project SOAR (Save Our American Resources), is to give Scout leaders some facts about the world's resources, the sources of water pollution, and how people can help in obtaining solutions. Among the topics discussed are the world's water resources, the water cycle, water quality, sources of water…

  1. Biosimilars: How Can Payers Get Long-Term Savings?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mestre-Ferrandiz, Jorge; Towse, Adrian; Berdud, Mikel

    2016-06-01

    The term 'biosimilar' refers to an alternative similar version of an off-patent innovative originator biotechnology product (the 'reference product'). Several biosimilars have been approved in Europe, and a number of top-selling biological medicines have lost, or will lose, patent protection over the next 5 years. We look at the experience in Europe so far. The USA has finally implemented a regulatory route for biosimilar approval. We recommend that European and US governments and payers take a strategic approach to get value for money from the use of biosimilars by (1) supporting and incentivising generation of high-quality comprehensive outcomes data on the effectiveness and safety of biosimilars and originator products; and (2) ensuring that incentives are in place for budget holders to benefit from price competition. This may create greater willingness on the part of budget holders and clinicians to use biosimilar and originator products with comparable outcomes interchangeably, and may drive down prices. Other options, such as direct price cuts for originator products or substitution rules without outcomes data, are likely to discourage biosimilar entry. With such approaches, governments may achieve a one-off cut in originator prices but may put at risk the creation of a more competitive market that would, in time, produce much greater savings. It was the creation of competitive markets for chemical generic drugs-notably, in the USA, the UK and Germany-rather than price control, that enabled payers to achieve the high discounts now taken for granted.

  2. Transfer factor - hypotheses for its structure and function.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shifrine, M; Scibienski, R

    1975-01-01

    Transfer factor (TF) is a dialyzable extract from primed lymphocytes that is able to transfer specific delayed hypersensitivity from one animal to another. On the basis of available data we suggest that TF is a polypeptide with a molecular weight below 15,000 daltons. We hypothesize that TF is the variable light or heavy chain domain of immunoglobulin: such a molecule conforms with the accepted properties of TF and also has the necessary specificity requirements. We also hypothesize that TF is part of a receptor site. beta-2-microglobulin, a molecule that is an integral part of cell surfaces, could be the anchor for TF. beta-2-microglobulin has homologies with the constant portion of immunoglobulin light or heavy chain and thus would combine with the variable domain (TF) to form a complete receptor site for a specific antigen. The properties of TF suggest its mode of action, which is discussed in detail in the text. The biologic advantages of TF is its ability to confer immediate (immunologie specific) protection while the 'normal' immune response develops.

  3. An energy saving mechanism of EPON networks for real time video transmission

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Chien-Ping; Wu, Ho-Ting; Chiang, Yun-Ting; Chien, Shieh-Chieh; Ke, Kai-Wei

    2015-07-01

    Modern access networks are constructed widely by passive optical networks (PONs) to meet the growing bandwidth demand. However, higher bandwidth means more energy consumption. To save energy, a few research works propose the dual-mode energy saving mechanism that allows the ONU to operate between active and sleep modes periodically. However, such dual-mode energy saving design may induce unnecessary power consumption or packet delay increase in the case where only downstream data exist for most of the time. In this paper, we propose a new tri-mode energy saving scheme for Ethernet PON (EPON). The new tri-mode energy saving design, combining the dual-mode saving mechanism with the doze mode, allows the ONU to switch among these three modes alternatively. In the doze mode, the ONU may receive downstream data while keeping its transmitter close. Such scenario is often observed for real time video downstream transmission. Furthermore, the low packet delay of high priority upstream data can be attained through the use of early wake-up mechanism employed in both energy saving modes. The energy saving and system efficiency can thus be achieved jointly while maintaining the differentiated QoS for data with various priorities. Performance results via simulation have demonstrated the effectiveness of such mechanism.

  4. Heat Saving Strategies in Sustainable Smart Energy Systems

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Lund, Henrik; Thellufsen, Jakob Zinck; Aggerholm, Søren

    that a least‐cost strategy will be to provide approximately 2/3 of the heat demand from district heating and the rest from individual heat pumps. Keywords: Energy Efficiency, Renewable energy, Heating strategy, Heat savings, District heating, Smart energy......One of the important issues related to the implementation of future sustainable smart energy systems based on renewable energy sources is the heating of buildings. Especially, when it comes to long‐term investment in savings and heating infrastructures it is essential to identify long‐term least......‐cost strategies. With Denmark as a case, this paper investigates to which extent heat should be saved rather than produced and to which extent district heating infrastructures, rather than individual heating solutions, should be used. Based on a concrete proposal to implement the Danish governmental long...

  5. Energy savings potential from energy-conserving irrigation systems

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Wilfert, G.L.; Patton, W.P.; Harrer, B.J.; Clark, M.A.

    1982-11-01

    This report systematically compares, within a consistent framework, the technical and economic characteristics of energy-conserving irrigation systems with those of conventional irrigation systems and to determine total energy savings. Levelized annual costs of owning and operating both energy-conserving and conventional irrigation systems have been developed and compared for all 17 states to account for the differences in energy costs and irrigation conditions in each state. Market penetration of energy-conserving systems is assessed for those systems having lower levelized annual costs than conventional systems performing the same function. Annual energy savings were computed by matching the energy savings per system with an assumed maximum market penetration of 100 percent in those markets where the levelized annual costs of energy-conserving systems are lower than the levelized annual costs of conventional systems.

  6. Boiler house modernization through shared savings program

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Breault, R.W. [Tecogen, Waltham, MA (United States)

    1995-12-31

    Throughout Poland as well as the rest of Eastern Europe, communities and industries rely on small heat only boilers to provide district and process heat. Together these two sectors produce about 85,000 MW from boilers in the 2 to 35 MW size range. The bulk of these units were installed prior to 1992 and must be completely overhauled to meet the emission regulations which will be coming into effect on January 1, 1998. Since the only practical fuel is coal in most cases, these boilers must be either retrofit with emission control technology or be replaced entirely. The question that arises is how to accomplish this given the current tight control of capital in Poland and other East European countries. A solution that we have for this problem is shared savings. These boilers are typically operating with a quiet low efficiency as compared to western standards and with excessive manual labor. Installing modernization equipment to improve the efficiency and to automate the process provides savings. ECOGY provides the funds for the modernization to improve the efficiency, add automation and install emission control equipment. The savings that are generated during the operation of the modernized boiler system are split between the client company and ECOGY for a number of years and then the system is turned over in entirety to the client. Depending on the operating capacity, the shared savings agreement will usually span 6 to 10 years.

  7. If you want to save, focus on the forest rather than on trees. The effects of shifts in levels of construal on saving decisions.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Joanna Rudzinska-Wojciechowska

    Full Text Available Although financial decisions are expected to be rational, there is a growing body of experimental research indicating that small psychological changes in one's mind-set in the actual decision-making moment might affect saving ratios. In this article, another type of change in one's mind-set, which can influence saving decisions, is explored, namely the level of construal. Construal level is a key descriptor of people's cognitive representations of targets, and is a way of characterising the mental mind-sets people use. Building on recent advances in the link between construal levels and intertemporal choices, the present research evaluates the effect of shifts in levels of construal in the very moment of decision making on people's propensity to save money. It is suggested that triggering a high-level construal mind-set would influence individuals' financial decisions and result in greater willingness to save than triggering a low-level construal mind-set. This assumption is supported by the findings: across three experiments, those with an abstract mind-set showed an increased willingness to save when compared to those with a concrete mind-set. The first experiment demonstrated that people in an abstract mind-set are more willing to delay financial gratification than those in a concrete mind-set. In the second and third experiments, those with an abstract mind-set showed an increased willingness to save when compared to those with a concrete mind-set. The research provides further evidence that mental states, which can be evoked by previous, unrelated tasks, such as level of cognitive abstraction, can influence everyday financial decisions. It, thus, highlights the role of situational factors that consumers may be not aware of, which still affect their savings decisions.

  8. If you want to save, focus on the forest rather than on trees. The effects of shifts in levels of construal on saving decisions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rudzinska-Wojciechowska, Joanna

    2017-01-01

    Although financial decisions are expected to be rational, there is a growing body of experimental research indicating that small psychological changes in one's mind-set in the actual decision-making moment might affect saving ratios. In this article, another type of change in one's mind-set, which can influence saving decisions, is explored, namely the level of construal. Construal level is a key descriptor of people's cognitive representations of targets, and is a way of characterising the mental mind-sets people use. Building on recent advances in the link between construal levels and intertemporal choices, the present research evaluates the effect of shifts in levels of construal in the very moment of decision making on people's propensity to save money. It is suggested that triggering a high-level construal mind-set would influence individuals' financial decisions and result in greater willingness to save than triggering a low-level construal mind-set. This assumption is supported by the findings: across three experiments, those with an abstract mind-set showed an increased willingness to save when compared to those with a concrete mind-set. The first experiment demonstrated that people in an abstract mind-set are more willing to delay financial gratification than those in a concrete mind-set. In the second and third experiments, those with an abstract mind-set showed an increased willingness to save when compared to those with a concrete mind-set. The research provides further evidence that mental states, which can be evoked by previous, unrelated tasks, such as level of cognitive abstraction, can influence everyday financial decisions. It, thus, highlights the role of situational factors that consumers may be not aware of, which still affect their savings decisions.

  9. Age differences in IDA savings outcomes: findings from the American Dream Demonstration.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Putnam, Michelle; Sherraden, Michael; Zhang, Lin; Morrow-Howell, Nancy

    2008-01-01

    This study aims to develop a greater understanding of age differences in savings outcomes within Individual Development Accounts (IDAs). Participant data from the American Dream Demonstration (ADD) are examined for age differences in accumulated net deposits, average monthly net deposits, and deposit frequency. ADDprogram data are examined for savings match rates, monthly savings targets, direct deposit, and hours of financial education offered. Results indicate that, on average, older IDA participants have better savings outcomes than younger participants. Findings from this study suggest that impoverished middleaged and older adults can save if provided an opportunity and incentives. However, success will depend on the characteristics of the programs.

  10. Safety culture as a matter of regulatory control and regulatory effectiveness

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Camargo, C.T.M.; Furieri, E.B.; Arrieta, L.A.I.; Almeida, C.U.C.

    2002-01-01

    More than 15 years have passed since the term 'safety culture' was introduced by the International Nuclear Safety Advisory Group (INSAG), and although the concept now is widely accepted, practical applications and characteristics have been disseminated mainly for nuclear power plant operating organizations. There is still a lack of international guidance on the use of safety culture as a regulatory matter and on the application of the concept within regulatory organizations. This work explores the meaning of safety culture in two different fields: as an element of safety management systems it shall be a matter of regulatory control; as a complementary tool for quality management it should be used to enhance regulatory effectiveness. Brazilian recent experience on regulating nuclear power reactors provide some examples on how the concept of safety culture may influence regulatory strategies and regulatory management. (author)

  11. 12 CFR 584.2a - Exempt savings and loan holding companies and grandfathered activities.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 12 Banks and Banking 5 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Exempt savings and loan holding companies and... THE TREASURY SAVINGS AND LOAN HOLDING COMPANIES § 584.2a Exempt savings and loan holding companies and grandfathered activities. (a) Exempt savings and loan holding companies. (1) The following savings and loan...

  12. Impact of Extended Daylight Saving Time on National Energy Consumption Report to Congress

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Belzer, D. B.; Hadley, S. W.; Chin, S-M.

    2008-10-01

    The Energy Policy Act of 2005 (Pub. L. No. 109-58; EPAct 2005) amended the Uniform Time Act of 1966 (Pub. L. No. 89-387) to increase the portion of the year that is subject to Daylight Saving Time. (15 U.S.C. 260a note) EPAct 2005 extended the duration of Daylight Saving Time in the spring by changing its start date from the first Sunday in April to the second Sunday in March, and in the fall by changing its end date from the last Sunday in October to the first Sunday in November. (15 U.S.C. 260a note) EPAct 2005 also called for the Department of Energy to evaluate the impact of Extended Daylight Saving Time on energy consumption in the United States and to submit a report to Congress. (15 U.S.C. 260a note) This report presents the results of impacts of Extended Daylight Saving Time on the national energy consumption in the United States. The key findings are: (1) The total electricity savings of Extended Daylight Saving Time were about 1.3 Tera Watt-hour (TWh). This corresponds to 0.5 percent per each day of Extended Daylight Saving Time, or 0.03 percent of electricity consumption over the year. In reference, the total 2007 electricity consumption in the United States was 3,900 TWh. (2) In terms of national primary energy consumption, the electricity savings translate to a reduction of 17 Trillion Btu (TBtu) over the spring and fall Extended Daylight Saving Time periods, or roughly 0.02 percent of total U.S. energy consumption during 2007 of 101,000 TBtu. (3) During Extended Daylight Saving Time, electricity savings generally occurred over a three- to five-hour period in the evening with small increases in usage during the early-morning hours. On a daily percentage basis, electricity savings were slightly greater during the March (spring) extension of Extended Daylight Saving Time than the November (fall) extension. On a regional basis, some southern portions of the United States exhibited slightly smaller impacts of Extended Daylight Saving Time on energy savings

  13. A survey of etiologic hypotheses among testicular cancer researchers

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Stang, A; Trabert, B; Rusner, C

    2015-01-01

    Basic research results can provide new ideas and hypotheses to be examined in epidemiological studies. We conducted a survey among testicular cancer researchers on hypotheses concerning the etiology of this malignancy. All researchers on the mailing list of Copenhagen Testis Cancer Workshops...... and corresponding authors of PubMed-indexed articles identified by the search term 'testicular cancer' and published within 10 years (in total 2750 recipients) were invited to respond to an e-mail-based survey. Participants of the 8th Copenhagen Testis Cancer Workshop in May 2014 were subsequently asked to rate...... that scored as most plausible. We also present plans for improving the survey that may be repeated at a next international meeting of experts in testicular cancer. Overall 52 of 99 (53%) registered participants of the 8th Copenhagen Testis Cancer Workshop submitted the plausibility rating form. Fourteen of 27...

  14. Technical Support Document: 50% Energy Savings for Small Office Buildings

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Thornton, Brian A.; Wang, Weimin; Huang, Yunzhi; Lane, Michael D.; Liu, Bing

    2010-04-30

    The Technical Support Document (TSD) for 50% energy savings in small office buildings documents the analysis and results for a recommended package of energy efficiency measures (EEMs) referred to as the advanced EEMs. These are changes to a building design that will reduce energy usage. The package of advanced EEMs achieves a minimum of 50% energy savings and a construction area weighted average energy savings of 56.6% over the ANSI/ASHRAE/IESNA Standard 90.1-2004 for 16 cities which represent the full range of climate zones in the United States. The 50% goal is for site energy usage reduction. The weighted average is based on data on the building area of construction in the various climate locations. Cost-effectiveness of the EEMs is determined showing an average simple payback of 6.7 years for all 16 climate locations. An alternative set of results is provided which includes a variable air volume HVAC system that achieves at least 50% energy savings in 7 of the 16 climate zones with a construction area weighted average savings of 48.5%. Other packages of EEMs may also achieve 50% energy savings; this report does not consider all alternatives but rather presents at least one way to reach the goal. Design teams using this TSD should follow an integrated design approach and utilize additional analysis to evaluate the specific conditions of a project.

  15. Prospects for future uranium savings through LWRs with high performance cores

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Mochida, T.; Yamamoto, T.; Sasaki, M.; Matsuura, H.; Ueji, M.; Murata, T.; Kanda, K.; Oka, Y.; Kondo, S.

    1995-01-01

    Since 1986, Nuclear Power Engineering Cooperation (NUPEC) has been studying four types of LWR high performance core concepts (i.e., the uranium saving core I (USC-I), the uranium saving core II (USC-II), the high moderation core (HMC) and the low moderation core (LMC)), which aim at improvement of uranium and plutonium utilization. After the evaluation of fundamental core performance and uranium and plutonium material balance for each reactor, potential uranium savings with different reactor strategies are evaluated for the Japanese scenario with assumption of the growth of future nuclear power plant generation, annual reprocessing capacity and schedules for the introduction of high performance core. At 2030, about 3-6% savings in uranium demand are expected by USC-I or USC-II strategy, while about 14% savings by HMC strategy and about 8% by LMC strategy. (author)

  16. Confidential data in a competitive utility environment: A regulatory perspective

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Vine, E.

    1996-08-01

    Historically, the electric utility industry has been regarded as one of the most open industries in the United States in sharing information but their reputation is being challenged by competitive energy providers, the general public, regulators, and other stakeholders. As the prospect of competition among electricity power providers has increased in recent years, many utilities have been requesting that the data they submit to their utility regulatory commissions remain confidential. Withholding utility information from the public is likely to have serious and significant policy implications with respect to: (1) consumer education, the pursuit of truth, mutual respect among parties, and social cooperation; (2) the creation of a fair market for competitive energy services; (3) the regulatory balance; (4) regional and national assessments of energy-savings opportunities; (5) research and development; and (6) evaluations of utility programs, plans, and policies. In a telephone survey of all public utility commissions (PUCs) that regulate electric and gas utilities in the U.S., we found that almost all PUCs have received requests from utility companies for data to be filed as confidential, and confidential data filings appear to have increased (both in scope and in frequency) in those states where utility restructuring is being actively discussed. The most common types of data submitted as confidential by utilities dealt with specific customer data, market data, avoided costs, and utility costs.

  17. Raising household saving: does financial education work?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gale, William G; Harris, Benjamin H; Levine, Ruth

    2012-01-01

    This article highlights the prevalence and economic outcomes of financial illiteracy among American households, and reviews previous research that examines how improving financial literacy affects household saving. Analysis of the research literature suggests that previous financial literacy efforts have yielded mixed results. Evidence suggests that interventions provided for employees in the workplace have helped increase household saving, but estimates of the magnitude of the impact vary widely. For financial education initiatives targeted to other groups, the evidence is much more ambiguous, suggesting a need for more econometrically rigorous evaluations.

  18. ADOPTING SOCIO-DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS IN PROFILING GREEN CONSUMERS: A REVIEW OF HYPOTHESES

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Arif Hartono

    2009-02-01

    Full Text Available In the last three decades worldwide environmental consciousness has increased dramatically as well as profiling green consumers have gained tremendous attention in the past. Segmenting and targeting markets base on pro-environmental purchase behavior are essential when companies positioning their green products. Socio-demographic characteristics have gained a lot of attention as the key profiling variables. Such characteristics have been employed by many scholars more frequently for the bases of segmenting and profiling green consumers. However, most existing studies of green consumers’ socio-demographic were US based. The present article attempts to review the common hypotheses of socio-demographic characteristics in profiling green consumers. The present article reviews five general hypotheses relating to socio-demographics and environmental consciousness of green consumers, namely the gender, age, education level, income, and occupation hypotheses, as well as the theoretical explanation for each hypothesis. Most previous studies tend to have the same conclusion in the gender, age, education level, and  income characteristics. Critics to socio-demographic characteristics and a need to conduct green marketing research in Indonesia was also reviewed.Key words: profiling, socio-demographic, green consumer, hypotheses.

  19. Landscape moderation of biodiversity patterns and processes - eight hypotheses

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Tscharntke, T.; Tylianakis, J.M.; Rand, T.A.; Didham, R.K.; Fahrig, L.; Batary, P.; Bengtsson, J.; Clough, Y.; Crist, T.O.; Dormann, C.; Ewers, R.M.; Frund, J.; Holt, R.D.; Holzschuh, A.; Klein, A.M.; Kleijn, D.; Kremen, C.; Landis, D.A.; Laurance, W.F.; Lindenmayer, D.B.; Scherber, C.; Sodhi, N.; Steffan-Dewenter, I.; Thies, C.; Putten, van der W.H.; Westphal, C.

    2012-01-01

    Understanding how landscape characteristics affect biodiversity patterns and ecological processes at local and landscape scales is critical for mitigating effects of global environmental change. In this review, we use knowledge gained from human-modified landscapes to suggest eight hypotheses, which

  20. How to estimate realistic energy savings in Energy Performance Certificates

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Wittchen, Kim Bjarne; Altmann, Nagmeh; Berecová, Monika

    Given the fact that most MS use fixed or other kinds of default values as boundary condition input for energy performance calculations, it is not surprising that the calculated energy performance differs from the measured energy consumption. As a consequence, the calculated energy savings due...... stationary calculation tools using monthly average values. The optimum solution for energy performance certificates and calculating realistic energy savings is to have two calculations. One calculation, using default values to calculate the label itself, and one with actual input parameters for calculating...... energy performance before and after implementing energy saving measures. Actual values though, may be difficult to identify, so there is a need to make adaptations to reality easy. Even if actual values are available, there are still issues that cause calculated energy savings to differ from the obtained...

  1. Towards Self-Learning Based Hypotheses Generation in Biomedical Text Domain.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gopalakrishnan, Vishrawas; Jha, Kishlay; Xun, Guangxu; Ngo, Hung Q; Zhang, Aidong

    2017-12-26

    The overwhelming amount of research articles in the domain of bio-medicine might cause important connections to remain unnoticed. Literature Based Discovery is a sub-field within biomedical text mining that peruses these articles to formulate high confident hypotheses on possible connections between medical concepts. Although many alternate methodologies have been proposed over the last decade, they still suffer from scalability issues. The primary reason, apart from the dense inter-connections between biological concepts, is the absence of information on the factors that lead to the edge-formation. In this work, we formulate this problem as a collaborative filtering task and leverage a relatively new concept of word-vectors to learn and mimic the implicit edge-formation process. Along with single-class classifier, we prune the search-space of redundant and irrelevant hypotheses to increase the efficiency of the system and at the same time maintaining and in some cases even boosting the overall accuracy. We show that our proposed framework is able to prune up to 90% of the hypotheses while still retaining high recall in top-K results. This level of efficiency enables the discovery algorithm to look for higher-order hypotheses, something that was infeasible until now. Furthermore, the generic formulation allows our approach to be agile to performboth open and closed discovery.We also experimentally validate that the core data-structures upon which the system bases its decision has a high concordance with the opinion of the experts.This coupled with the ability to understand the edge formation process provides us with interpretable results without any manual intervention. The relevant JAVA codes are available at: https://github.com/vishrawas/Medline-Code_v2. vishrawa@buffalo.edukishlayj@buffalo.edu. Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. © The Author (2017). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email

  2. 12 CFR 557.14 - What interest rate may I pay on savings accounts?

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 12 Banks and Banking 5 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false What interest rate may I pay on savings... DEPOSITS Deposit Activities of Federal Savings Associations § 557.14 What interest rate may I pay on savings accounts? (a) You may pay interest at any rate or anticipated rate of return on savings accounts...

  3. Short-term indicators. Intensities as a proxy for savings

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Boonekamp, P.G.M.; Gerdes, J. [ECN Policy Studies, Petten (Netherlands); Faberi, S. [Institute of Studies for the Integration of Systems ISIS, Rome (Italy)

    2013-12-15

    The ODYSSEE database on energy efficiency indicators (www.odyssee-indicators.org) has been set up to enable the monitoring and evaluation of realised energy efficiency improvements and related energy savings. The database covers the 27 EU countries as well as Norway and Croatia and data are available from 1990 on. This work contributes to the growing need for quantitative monitoring and evaluation of the impacts of energy policies and measures, both at the EU and national level, e.g. due to the Energy Services Directive and the proposed Energy Efficiency Directive. Because the underlying data become available only after some time, the savings figures are not always timely available. This is especially true for the ODEX efficiency indices per sector that rely on a number of indicators. Therefore, there is a need for so-called short-term indicators that become available shortly after the year has passed for which data are needed. The short term indicators do not replace the savings indicators but function as a proxy for the savings in the most recent year. This proxy value is faster available, but will be less accurate than the saving indicators themselves. The short term indicators have to be checked regularly with the ODEX indicators in order to see whether they can function still as a proxy.

  4. On the methodological approaches to the study of saving behavior of the population

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Galina Vadimovna Belekhova

    2015-03-01

    Full Text Available The task to ensure effective functioning of all systems in the society and sustainable economic growth requires significant amounts of investment resources, which include savings of the population. This involves identification of the amount of funds accumulated by the population and studies of the characteristics of its saving behavior. The article reveals advantages and disadvantages of the main methodological approaches to the research in saving behavior and gives a comparative analysis of methods on the basis of official statistical information. As for Russia income is a key factor in saving behavior, the article also addresses the problem of assessing the degree of income differentiation of saving behavior. For this purpose we have used a method of household budgets sample surveys on the basis of which we have calculated and analyzed key performance indicators of savings behavior of households, including in the context of groups with different income levels. Unlike previous works on the topic, our study uses available resources (not money income as a basis for the calculation of saving behavior indicators, as they more fully characterize funds of low-income households, which are mostly represented in the budget surveys sample. The performed analysis has helped identify that the degree of the population’s savings differentiation does not yield to the incomes differentiation, and the highest levels of savings and used financial assets belong to the well-to-do group. What is more, the growth in per capita income has not encouraged the poor to save. Thus, in contrast to the well-to-do, increasing the volume of savings in the cost structure, poorer groups direct the major part of funds for consumer needs and different payments. Thus, the share of savings in the overall structure of their income remains practically unchanged. The conclusion emphasizes that sociological methods can be used to study qualitative changes in saving behavior and

  5. Chapter 10: Peak Demand and Time-Differentiated Energy Savings Cross-Cutting Protocol. The Uniform Methods Project: Methods for Determining Energy Efficiency Savings for Specific Measures

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Kurnik, Charles W [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Stern, Frank [Navigant, Boulder, CO (United States); Spencer, Justin [Navigant, Boulder, CO (United States)

    2017-10-03

    Savings from electric energy efficiency measures and programs are often expressed in terms of annual energy and presented as kilowatt-hours per year (kWh/year). However, for a full assessment of the value of these savings, it is usually necessary to consider the measure or program's impact on peak demand as well as time-differentiated energy savings. This cross-cutting protocol describes methods for estimating the peak demand and time-differentiated energy impacts of measures implemented through energy efficiency programs.

  6. Integrated resource planning for local gas distribution companies: A critical review of regulatory policy issues

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Harunuzzaman, M.; Islam, M.

    1994-08-01

    According to the report, public utility commissions (PUCs) are increasingly adopting, or considering the adoption of integrated resource planning (IRP) for local gas distribution companies (LDCs). The Energy Policy Act of 1992 (EPAct) requires PUCs to consider IRP for gas LDCs. This study has two major objectives: (1) to help PUCs develop appropriate regulatory approaches with regard to IRP for gas LDCs; and (2) to help PUCs respond to the EPAct directive. The study finds that it is appropriate for PUCs to pursue energy efficiency within the traditional regulatory framework of minimizing private costs of energy production and delivery; and PUCs should play a limited role in addressing environmental externalities. The study also finds that in promoting energy efficiency, PUCs should pursue policies that are incentive-based, procompetitive, and sensitive to rate impacts. The study evaluates a number of traditional and nontraditional ratemaking mechanisms on the basis of cost minimization, energy efficiency, competitiveness, and other criteria. The mechanisms evaluated include direct recovery of DSM expenses, lost revenue adjustments for DSM options, revenue decoupling mechanisms, sharing of DSM cost savings, performance-based rate of return for DSM, provision of DSM as a separate service, deregulation of DSM service, price caps, and deregulation of the noncore gas market. The study concludes with general recommendations for regulatory approaches and ratemaking mechanisms that PUCs may wish to consider in advancing IRP objectives

  7. 76 FR 21932 - Self-Regulatory Organizations; Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Inc.; Order Granting...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-04-19

    ... statement therein, as follows: I. Introduction On February 4, 2011, the Financial Industry Regulatory...-Regulatory Organizations; Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Inc.; Order Granting Approval of a... Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Inc. (``FINRA'') to amend Rule 13806 of the Code of Arbitration...

  8. Mass savings domain of plasma propulsion for LEO to GEO transfer

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Choueiri, E.Y.; Kelly, A.J.; Jahn, R.G.

    1993-01-01

    A parametric model is used to study the mass savings of plasma propulsion over advanced chemical propulsion for lower earth orbit (LEO) to geosynchronous orbit (GEO) transfer. Such savings are characterized by stringent requirements of massive payloads (O(10) metric tons) and high power levels (O(100) kW). Mass savings on the order of the payload mass are possible but at the expense of longer transfer times (8--20 months). Typical of the savings domain is the case of a self-field magnetoplasmadynamic (MPD) thruster running quasi-steadily, at an I s of 2000 s, with 600 kW of input power, raising a 50 metric ton satellite in 270 days. The initial mass at LEO will be 65 tons less than a 155 ton LO 2 /LH 2 advanced chemical high thrust spacecraft. An optimum I s can only be found if the cost savings associated with mass savings are counterbalanced by the cost losses incurred by longer transfer times. A simplistic cost model that illustrates the overall trends in the optimization yielded an optimum I s of about 2200 s for a cost effective baseline MPD system

  9. Regulatory inspection of nuclear facilities and enforcement by the regulatory body. Safety guide

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2002-01-01

    The purpose of this Safety Guide is to provide recommendations for regulatory bodies on the inspection of nuclear facilities, regulatory enforcement and related matters. The objective is to provide the regulatory body with a high level of confidence that operators have the processes in place to ensure compliance and that they do comply with legal requirements, including meeting the safety objectives and requirements of the regulatory body. However, in the event of non-compliance, the regulatory body should take appropriate enforcement action. This Safety Guide covers regulatory inspection and enforcement in relation to nuclear facilities such as: enrichment and fuel manufacturing plants; nuclear power plants; other reactors such as research reactors and critical assemblies; spent fuel reprocessing plants; and facilities for radioactive waste management, such as treatment, storage and disposal facilities. This Safety Guide also covers issues relating to the decommissioning of nuclear facilities, the closure of waste disposal facilities and site rehabilitation. Section 2 sets out the objectives of regulatory inspection and enforcement. Section 3 covers the management of regulatory inspections. Section 4 covers the performance of regulatory inspections, including internal guidance, planning and preparation, methods of inspection and reports of inspections. Section 5 deals with regulatory enforcement actions. Section 6 covers the assessment of regulatory inspections and enforcement activities. The Appendix provides further details on inspection areas for nuclear facilities

  10. Effects of daylight savings time changes on stock market volatility.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Berument, M Hakan; Dogan, Nukhet; Onar, Bahar

    2010-04-01

    The presence of daylight savings time effects on stock returns and on stock volatility was investigated using an EGARCH specification to model the conditional variance. The evidence gathered from the major United States stock markets for the period between 1967 and 2007 did not support the existence of the daylight savings time effect on stock returns or on volatility. Returns on the first business day following daylight savings time changes were not lower nor was the volatility higher, as would be expected if there were an effect.

  11. Energy saving certificates; Les certificats d'economies d'energie

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    NONE

    2005-11-15

    The French ministry of economy, finances and industry and the French agency of environment and energy mastery (Ademe) have organized on November 8, 2005, a colloquium for the presentation of the energy saving certificates, a new tool to oblige the energy suppliers to encourage their clients to make energy savings. This document gathers the transparencies presented at this colloquium about the following topics: state-of-the-art and presentation of the energy saving certificates system: presentation of the EEC system, presentation of the EEC standard operations; the energy saving certificates in Europe today: energy efficiency commitment in UK, Italian white certificate scheme, perspectives of the different European systems. (J.S.)

  12. An empirical study of the substitution of foreign for domestic savings in Brazil

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pereira

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available This study aims to investigate the relations between the level of the real exchange rate, foreign savings and domestic savings in Brazil. The appreciation of the domestic currency caused by financing the current account deficit reduces the expected profit rate in the tradable goods industry, leading to a drop in domestic savings and the substitution of foreign for domestic savings. An econometric analysis of the Brazilian economy indicates a stable long-term relation between the exchange rate and domestic savings, and that relative devaluations of the real exchange rate positively and significantly affect domestic savings in 1994–2013. The estimations’ results persist even after the period is divided into two samples, after tests showing the presence of a structural break in the model in 2002. In addition, the results of the estimations performed on the two samples confirm the presence of substitution of foreign for domestic savings.

  13. Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund : 1998 annual report

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1999-01-01

    A review of the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund as it operated under the new investment framework established in 1997 was presented. The new statutory mission of the Fund is to provide stewardship of the savings from Alberta's non-renewable resources by providing the greatest financial returns on those savings for current and future generations of Albertans. In 1998, the Fund earned $947 million in income with nearly $25 million of income being retained to ensure that the value of the Fund grows to off-set the effects of inflation. Net assets of the Fund on March 31, 1998 was $ 12.3 billion. Operation of the Fund, the accounting method used, and details about the Transition Portfolio and the Endowment Portfolio are provided. An assessment of Alberta's economic climate accompanies the auditor's report and the detailed financial statements of the Fund. tabs

  14. Defining The Energy Saving Potential of Architectural Design

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Naboni, Emanuele; Malcangi, Antonio; Zhang, Yi

    2015-01-01

    Designers, in response to codes or voluntary " green building " programs, are increasingly concerned with building energy demand reduction, but they are not fully aware of the energy saving potential of architectural design. According to literature, building form, construction and material choices...... on sustainable design: " Design With Climate " by Olgyay (1963), which discussed strategies for climate-adapted architecture, and Lechner´s " Heating, Cooling and Lighting " (1991), on how to reduce building energy needs by as much as 60 – 80 percent with proper architectural design decisions. Both books used...... behaviour. The research shows the best solution for each of the climates and compares them with Olgyay´s findings. Finally, for each climate the energy saving potential is defined and then compared to Lechner's conclusions. Defining The Energy Saving Potential of Architectural Design (PDF Download Available...

  15. Heat Saving Strategies in Sustainable Smart Energy Systems

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Lund, Henrik; Thellufsen, Jakob Zinck; Aggerholm, Søren

    2014-01-01

    This paper investigates to which extent heat should be saved rather than produced and to which extent district heating infrastructures, rather than individual heating solutions, should be used in future sustainable smart energy systems. Based on a concrete proposal to implement the Danish...... governmental 2050 fossil-free vision, this paper identifies marginal heat production costs and compares these to marginal heat savings costs for two different levels of district heating. A suitable least-cost heating strategy seems to be to invest in an approximately 50% decrease in net heat demands in new...... buildings and buildings that are being renovated anyway, while the implementation of heat savings in buildings that are not being renovated hardly pays. Moreover, the analysis points in the direction that a least-cost strategy will be to provide approximately 2/3 of the heat demand from district heating...

  16. Daylight savings time transitions and the incidence rate of unipolar depressive episodes

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hansen, Bertel T; Sønderskov, Kim M; Hageman, Ida

    2017-01-01

    Background: Daylight savings time transitions affect approximately 1.6 billion people worldwide. Prior studies have documented associations between daylight savings time transitions and adverse health outcomes, but it remains unknown whether they also cause an increase in the incidence rate...... of depressive episodes. This seems likely because daylight savings time transitions affect circadian rhythms, which are implicated in the etiology of depressive disorder. Therefore, we investigated the effects of daylight savings time transitions on the incidence rate of unipolar depressive episodes. Methods...

  17. Energy Saver: Tips on Saving Energy and Money in Your Home

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Casey, Allison L [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

    2017-10-04

    This guide shows you how easy it is to reduce your energy use at home and on the road. You'll find quick tips you can use to start saving today, as well as information on larger projects that will help save you money over the long term. Find even more information about saving money and energy at home by visiting our website, EnergySaver.gov.

  18. Social Capital and Savings Behaviour

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Newman, Carol; Tarp, Finn; Van Den Broeck, Katleen

    We explore the extent to which social capital can play a role in imparting information about the returns to saving where potential knowledge gaps and mistrust exists. Using data from Vietnam we find strong evidence to support the hypothesis that information transmitted via reputable social...

  19. A review of the importance of savings in rural financial markets of ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Savings accumulated by the poor are useful for self-financing of investments, emergencies and consumption-smoothing, while savings mobilized by financial institutions are the main source of growth of funds and bring independence from external subsidies and interference. This paper focuses on the importance of savings ...

  20. Energy savings from temperature setpoints and deadband: Quantifying the influence of building and system properties on savings

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ghahramani, Ali; Zhang, Kenan; Dutta, Kanu; Yang, Zheng; Becerik-Gerber, Burcin

    2016-01-01

    Highlights: • We provide a systematic approach to quantify the impact of factors on energy usage. • We study setpoints, deadbands, building size, construction, occupancy, and climate. • We derive the HVAC optimal control parameters with respect to dynamic factors. • We present quantification of optimal setpoints and deadbands energy usages. • Daily optimal setpoints based on outside temperature improves energy efficiency. - Abstract: This paper provides a systematic approach for quantifying the influence of building size, construction category, climate, occupancy schedule, setpoint, and deadband on HVAC energy consumption in office buildings. Simulating the DOE reference office buildings of three sizes and three construction categories in all United States climate zones, using the EnergyPlus, we conducted several N-way ANOVA analyses to study the interrelationships between setpoints, deadbands and several building related and environment related factors. In summary, daily optimal deadband selection of 0, 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6 K would result in an average energy savings of −70.0%, −34.9%, −13.7%, 9.6%, 16.4%, and 21.2%, respectively, compared to baseline deadline of 3 K. Selecting the daily optimal setpoint in the range of 22.5 ± 1 °C, 22.5 ± 2 °C, and 22.5 ± 3 °C would result in an average savings of 7.5%, 12.7%, and 16.4%, respectively, compared to the baseline setpoint of 22.5 °C. Additionally, we found that when the outdoor temperature is within −20 to 30 °C, the optimal setpoint depends on the building size. We also observed a range of outdoor temperatures (e.g., 9–14 °C for small buildings and 8–11 °C for medium buildings) where the setpoint selection would only slightly influence the energy consumption. However, the choice of setpoints becomes very influential (up to 30% of energy savings) where the outdoor temperatures are slightly outside the mentioned ranges on either direction. The potential savings from selecting daily optimal

  1. Telephone-based disease management: why it does not save money.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Motheral, Brenda R

    2011-01-01

    To understand why the current telephone-based model of disease management (DM) does not provide cost savings and how DM can be retooled based on the best available evidence to deliver better value. Literature review. The published peer-reviewed evaluations of DM and transitional care models from 1990 to 2010 were reviewed. Also examined was the cost-effectiveness literature on the treatment of chronic conditions that are commonly included in DM programs, including heart failure, diabetes mellitus, coronary artery disease, and asthma. First, transitional care models, which have historically been confused with commercial DM programs, can provide credible savings over a short period, rendering them low-hanging fruit for plan sponsors who desire real savings. Second, cost-effectiveness research has shown that the individual activities that constitute contemporary DM programs are not cost saving except for heart failure. Targeting of specific patients and activity combinations based on risk, actionability, treatment and program effectiveness, and costs will be necessary to deliver a cost-saving DM program, combined with an outreach model that brings vendors closer to the patient and physician. Barriers to this evidence-driven approach include resources required, marketability, and business model disruption. After a decade of market experimentation with limited success, new thinking is called for in the design of DM programs. A program design that is based on a cost-effectiveness approach, combined with greater program efficacy, will allow for the development of DM programs that are cost saving.

  2. Estimated time of arrival and debiasing the time saving bias.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Eriksson, Gabriella; Patten, Christopher J D; Svenson, Ola; Eriksson, Lars

    2015-01-01

    The time saving bias predicts that the time saved when increasing speed from a high speed is overestimated, and underestimated when increasing speed from a slow speed. In a questionnaire, time saving judgements were investigated when information of estimated time to arrival was provided. In an active driving task, an alternative meter indicating the inverted speed was used to debias judgements. The simulated task was to first drive a distance at a given speed, and then drive the same distance again at the speed the driver judged was required to gain exactly 3 min in travel time compared with the first drive. A control group performed the same task with a speedometer and saved less than the targeted 3 min when increasing speed from a high speed, and more than 3 min when increasing from a low speed. Participants in the alternative meter condition were closer to the target. The two studies corroborate a time saving bias and show that biased intuitive judgements can be debiased by displaying the inverted speed. Practitioner Summary: Previous studies have shown a cognitive bias in judgements of the time saved by increasing speed. This simulator study aims to improve driver judgements by introducing a speedometer indicating the inverted speed in active driving. The results show that the bias can be reduced by presenting the inverted speed and this finding can be used when designing in-car information systems.

  3. Intervention strategy to stimulate energy-saving behavior of local residents

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Han, Q.; Nieuwenhijsen, I.; Vries, B. de; Blokhuis, E.; Schaefer, W.

    2013-01-01

    This study investigates intervention strategy in stimulating energy-saving behavior to achieve energy neutral urban development. A tree structure overview of potential interventions classified into three categories is revealed. An integrated behaviour model is developed reflecting the relations between behaviour and influence factors. A latent class model is used to identify segments of local residents who differ regarding their preferences for interventions. Data are collected from a sample of residents in the Eindhoven region of the Netherlands in 2010. The results indicate that social-demographic characteristics, knowledge, motivation and context factors play important roles in energy-saving behaviour. Specifically, four segments of residents in the study area were identified that clearly differed in their preferences of interventions: cost driven residents, conscious residents, ease driven residents and environment minded residents. These findings emphasize that the intervention strategy should be focused on specific target groups to have the right mixture of interventions to achieve effective results on stimulating them to save energy. - Highlights: ► A latent class model to identify segments with preferred energy-saving interventions. ► An integrated energy-saving behavior model of casual relations. ► A tree structure overview of potential interventions

  4. Fossil energy savings potential of sugar cane bio-energy systems

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Nguyen, Thu Lan T. [Department of Agroecology, Aarhus University, Tjele (Denmark); The Joint Graduate School of Energy and Environment, King Mongkut' s University of Technology Thonburi, Bangkok (Thailand); Hermansen, John E. [Department of Agroecology, Aarhus University, Tjele (Denmark); Sagisaka, Masayuki [Institute of Science for Safety and Sustainability, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Tsukuba (Japan)

    2009-11-15

    One important rationale for bio-energy systems is their potential to save fossil energy. Converting a conventional sugar mill into a bio-energy process plant would contribute to fossil energy savings via the extraction of renewable electricity and ethanol substituting for fossil electricity and gasoline, respectively. This paper takes a closer look at the Thai sugar industry and examines two practical approaches that will enhance fossil energy savings. The first one addresses an efficient extraction of energy in the form of electricity from the excess bagasse and cane trash. The second while proposing to convert molasses or sugar cane to ethanol stresses the use of bagasse as well as distillery spent wash to replace coal in meeting ethanol plants' energy needs. The savings potential achieved with extracting ethanol from surplus sugar versus current practice in sugar industry in Thailand amounts to 15 million barrels of oil a year. Whether the saving benefits could be fully realized, however, depends on how well the potential land use change resulting from an expansion of ethanol production is managed. The results presented serve as a useful guidance to formulate strategies that enable optimum utilization of biomass as an energy source. (author)

  5. Where to place the saving obligation: Energy end-users or suppliers?

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bertoldi, Paolo; Labanca, Nicola; Rezessy, Silvia; Steuwer, Sibyl; Oikonomou, Vlasis

    2013-01-01

    Obligations to save energy differentiate, among other features, by obliged parties. These are obligations on energy suppliers and energy end-users. Supplier obligations have been introduced in North America, Europe and Australia. Under supplier obligations energy suppliers have to comply with mandatory energy saving targets and thus they implement (directly or via third parties) energy efficiency projects on their clients’ premises, or they decide to trade certified project savings if this option is envisaged by their obligation scheme. In several emerging schemes such as the UK Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) Energy Efficiency Scheme, the Tokyo Emission Trading Scheme or the Perform Achieve and Trade (PAT) Scheme in India, the obligation to reduce energy consumption is placed on large end-users directly and end-users are allowed to trade emissions allowances or energy saving certificates. The paper starts with presenting these two conceptually different ways for introducing energy saving obligations. Then it analyses advantages and disadvantages of end-users obligations compared to suppliers obligations. The preliminary conclusion of the paper is that supplier obligations seem to be well-suited for the residential sector, but end-user saving obligations may offer advantages when it comes to the industrial and commercial sectors. - Highlights: • We present different ways for introducing energy saving obligations. • We analyse energy end-users obligations vs. supplier obligations. • Supplier obligations seem to be well-suited for the residential sector. • End-user obligations offer advantages in the industrial and commercial sectors

  6. Learning to save lives!

    CERN Document Server

    2003-01-01

    They're all around you and watch over you, but you won't be aware of them unless you look closely at their office doors. There are 308 of them and they have all been given 12 hours of training with the CERN Fire Brigade. Who are they? Quite simply, those who could one day save your life at work, the CERN first-aiders. First-aiders are recruited on a volunteer basis. "Training is in groups of 10 to 12 people and a lot of emphasis is placed on the practical to ensure that they remember the life-saving techniques we show them", explains Patrick Berlinghi, a CERN first-aid instructor from TIS Division. He is looking forward to the arrival of four new instructors, which will bring the total number to twelve (eleven firemen and one member of the Medical Service). "The new instructors were trained at CERN from 16 to 24 May by Marie-Christine Boucher Da Ros (a member of the Commission Pédagogie de l'Observatoire National Français du Secourisme, the education commission of France's national first-aid body). This in...

  7. Real-time pricing when some consumers resist in saving electricity

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Salies, Evens

    2013-01-01

    Successful real-time electricity pricing depends firstly upon consumers' willingness to subscribe to such terms and, secondly, on their ability to curb consumption levels. The present paper addresses both issues by considering consumers differentiated by their electricity saving costs, half of whom resist saving electricity. We demonstrate that when consumers are free to adopt real-time prices, producers prefer charging inefficient prices and, in so doing, discriminate against that portion of the consumer population which faces no saving costs. We also find that efficient marginal cost pricing is feasible, but is incompatible with mass adoption of real-time prices. - Highlights: • We model consumers switching from uniform to real-time electricity pricing (RTP). • Half the consumer population is pro-RTP and half resists saving electricity. • Efficient RTP is feasible but is incompatible with mass adoption

  8. Fossil energy savings potential of sugar cane bio-energy systems

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nguyen, Thu Lan T; Hermansen, John Erik; Sagisaka, Masayuki

    2009-01-01

    One important rationale for bio-energy systems is their potential to save fossil energy. Converting a conventional sugar mill into a bio-energy process plant would contribute to fossil energy savings via the extraction of renewable electricity and ethanol substituting for fossil electricity...... and gasoline, respectively. This paper takes a closer look at the Thai sugar industry and examines two practical approaches that will enhance fossil energy savings. The first one addresses an efficient extraction of energy in the form of electricity from the excess bagasse and cane trash. The second while...... proposing to convert molasses or sugar cane to ethanol stresses the use of bagasse as well as distillery spent wash to replace coal in meeting ethanol plants' energy needs. The savings potential achieved with extracting ethanol from surplus sugar versus current practice in sugar industry in Thailand amounts...

  9. Salinity- and population-dependent genome regulatory response during osmotic acclimation in the killifish (Fundulus heteroclitus) gill.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Whitehead, Andrew; Roach, Jennifer L; Zhang, Shujun; Galvez, Fernando

    2012-04-15

    The killifish Fundulus heteroclitus is abundant in osmotically dynamic estuaries and it can quickly adjust to extremes in environmental salinity. We performed a comparative osmotic challenge experiment to track the transcriptomic and physiological responses to two salinities throughout a time course of acclimation, and to explore the genome regulatory mechanisms that enable extreme osmotic acclimation. One southern and one northern coastal population, known to differ in their tolerance to hypo-osmotic exposure, were used as our comparative model. Both populations could maintain osmotic homeostasis when transferred from 32 to 0.4 p.p.t., but diverged in their compensatory abilities when challenged down to 0.1 p.p.t., in parallel with divergent transformation of gill morphology. Genes involved in cell volume regulation, nucleosome maintenance, ion transport, energetics, mitochondrion function, transcriptional regulation and apoptosis showed population- and salinity-dependent patterns of expression during acclimation. Network analysis confirmed the role of cytokine and kinase signaling pathways in coordinating the genome regulatory response to osmotic challenge, and also posited the importance of signaling coordinated through the transcription factor HNF-4α. These genome responses support hypotheses of which regulatory mechanisms are particularly relevant for enabling extreme physiological flexibility.

  10. REVIEW OF ENERGY-SAVING TECHNOLOGIES IN MODERN HYDRAULIC DRIVES

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mykola Karpenko

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available This paper focuses on review of modern energy­saving technologies in hydraulic drives. Described main areas of energy conservation in hydraulic drive (which in turn are divided into many under the directions and was established the popularity of them. Reviewed the comparative analysis of efficiency application of various strategies for energy saving in a hydraulic drive. Based on the review for further research a combined method of real­time control systems with energy­saving algorithms and regeneration unit – selected for maxing efficiency in hydraulic drive. Scientific papers (40 papers, what introduced in review, is not older than 15 years in the databases “Sciencedirect” and “Scopus”.

  11. Capital Mobility: An application of Saving-Investment Link for Tunisia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jauhari Dahalan

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available The paper examines the degree of capital mobility in Tunisia for 1970 to 2009 period, using Feldstein and Horioka (1980 method of savings and investment comovement. We apply ARDL bound test to assess comovement between savings and investment; and to compute the savings retention ratio with FMOLS and DOLS as complements. The results reveal low capital mobility, in contrary to Maminingi (1997 who note perfect capital immobility in Tunisia. Hence, efforts should be made by authorities in Tunisia to evolve policies that will mobilize international capital into Tunisia

  12. About instrumental innovation. Energy saving certificates

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Baiz, Adam; Monnoyer-Smith, Laurence

    2016-09-01

    Energy saving certificates (in French CEE for certificats d'economie d'energie) have been implemented in 2006, and have proven to be a rather efficient tool of public policy, with a low cost, and a good social acceptability, notably due to its hybrid nature (incentive and coercive) in function of the targeted actors. Thus, this document addresses and discusses the interest of such instruments for the public environmental policy. It outlines that instruments tend to be always less coercive, and then comments the example of these energy saving certificates: brief presentation, discussion and explanation of their efficiency, multi-dimensional nature of this instrument, benefits of more or less coercive instruments depending on the actors (State, households, energy providers)

  13. Stakeholders’ influence on the adoption of energy-saving technologies in Italian homes

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Berardi, Umberto

    2013-01-01

    The instability and fragmentation of the temporary aggregations of many stakeholders in construction processes are barriers to adopting new technologies. This paper investigates the influence of different stakeholders on the adoption of mature energy-saving technologies in new residential buildings. Recent literature about the influence of different stakeholders on construction processes is reviewed focusing in their interest for energy saving technologies. To gain an insight into the specific roles played by stakeholders (general contractors, construction firms, architects, users and public governments) in different projects, a case study methodology was used. The influence on the adoption of energy-saving technologies of stakeholders was assessed through semi-structured interviews. These interviews focused on the interest and power for the adoption of several energy-saving technologies. Having recognized that the interest in adoption is often expressed late in the construction processes, the time of introduction of this interest was assessed. This paper provides an empirical insight into significant barriers for the adoption of energy saving technologies which are the low influence of highly motivated stakeholders on the decision of adoption, and the delay at which the interest in energy-saving technologies emerges. Finally, policies to overcome these barriers are suggested. - Highlights: • Why energy saving technologies are rarely adopted in buildings? • Diffusion is slowed by the late participation of stakeholders with great interest for energy technologies. • The influence of construction stakeholders for the adoption of energy saving technologies is measured in Italian case studies. • More integrated relationships among stakeholders are required to help the adoption of energy saving technologies. • Process re-organizations and policies which increase final users’ power are needed

  14. Extensive evolutionary changes in regulatory element activity during human origins are associated with altered gene expression and positive selection.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yoichiro Shibata

    2012-06-01

    Full Text Available Understanding the molecular basis for phenotypic differences between humans and other primates remains an outstanding challenge. Mutations in non-coding regulatory DNA that alter gene expression have been hypothesized as a key driver of these phenotypic differences. This has been supported by differential gene expression analyses in general, but not by the identification of specific regulatory elements responsible for changes in transcription and phenotype. To identify the genetic source of regulatory differences, we mapped DNaseI hypersensitive (DHS sites, which mark all types of active gene regulatory elements, genome-wide in the same cell type isolated from human, chimpanzee, and macaque. Most DHS sites were conserved among all three species, as expected based on their central role in regulating transcription. However, we found evidence that several hundred DHS sites were gained or lost on the lineages leading to modern human and chimpanzee. Species-specific DHS site gains are enriched near differentially expressed genes, are positively correlated with increased transcription, show evidence of branch-specific positive selection, and overlap with active chromatin marks. Species-specific sequence differences in transcription factor motifs found within these DHS sites are linked with species-specific changes in chromatin accessibility. Together, these indicate that the regulatory elements identified here are genetic contributors to transcriptional and phenotypic differences among primate species.

  15. Mobile financial services and financial inclusion: Is it a boon for savings mobilization?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shem Alfred Ouma

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available The adoption of mobile telephony to provide financial services in Africa has become instrumental in integrating the hitherto unbanked segments of the population to the mainstream financial systems. This study sought to establish this linkage by examining whether the pervasive use of mobile telephony to provide financial services is a boon for savings mobilization in selected countries in sub Saharan Africa. The findings show that availability and usage of mobile phones to provide financial services promotes the likelihood of saving at the household level. Not only does access to mobile financial services boost the likelihood to save, but also has a significant impact on the amounts saved, perhaps due to the frequency and convenience with which such transactions can be undertaken using a mobile phone. Both forms of savings, that is, basic mobile phone savings stored in the phone and bank integrated mobile savings are likely to be promoted by use of mobile phones. Thus, growing and deepening the scope for mobile phone financial services is an avenue for promoting savings mobilization, especially among the poor and low income groups with constrained access to formal financial services.

  16. Economic Energy Savings Potential in Federal Buildings

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Brown, Daryl R.; Dirks, James A.; Hunt, Diane M.

    2000-09-04

    The primary objective of this study was to estimate the current life-cycle cost-effective (i.e., economic) energy savings potential in Federal buildings and the corresponding capital investment required to achieve these savings, with Federal financing. Estimates were developed for major categories of energy efficiency measures such as building envelope, heating system, cooling system, and lighting. The analysis was based on conditions (building stock and characteristics, retrofit technologies, interest rates, energy prices, etc.) existing in the late 1990s. The potential impact of changes to any of these factors in the future was not considered.

  17. Financing aspects of electricity saving's in Brazil

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Pacca, S.A.; Sauer, I.L.

    1996-01-01

    Programs regarding to energy saving in Brasil arised by the early 80's from the concern with oil products consumption. The situation has changed and electricity is growing in importance when energy conservation is discussed. Thus, the government, following examples from abroad, has been trying to overcome the barriers that obstruct a massive process evolution towards energy saving, since the potential is spread out in many society segments. One important issue is related to financing energy conservation. This paper attempts to analyze the utilities efforts allied to public and private banks investments towards energy conservation financing. (author)

  18. Strategic design of cost savings guarantee in energy performance contracting under uncertainty

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Deng, Qianli; Jiang, Xianglin; Cui, Qingbin; Zhang, Limao

    2015-01-01

    Highlights: • A methodology is proposed to assist Energy Service Companies to maintain competitiveness in winning bids. • Uncertainties within the energy cost savings are modeled stochastically using the Monte-Carlo simulation. • A strategic energy savings guarantee design curve is derived, where all points return as appropriate guarantees. • A campus case is presented to demonstrate the applicability for finding appropriate guaranteed savings value. - Abstract: Among the key barriers to profit in Energy Performance Contracting (EPC) are uncertainties about attaining the realized energy cost savings and potential disputes over the guaranteed cost savings. In this paper, a methodology has been proposed to assist the Energy Service Company (ESCO): (1) to evaluate the risk threshold if the guarantee has already been made, and (2) to determine the guarantee design, if the guarantee has not been made yet, that not only promises the ESCO’s profitability from EPC but also maintains its competitiveness to win the bid. Uncertainties within the energy cost savings are modeled stochastically using Monte-Carlo simulation, taking both the energy price fluctuation and the facility performance variability into account. Based on that, a strategic energy savings guarantee design curve is derived, that all the points on it would return as appropriate guarantees. Finally, a campus case is presented to demonstrate the applicability for finding the appropriate guaranteed savings value. This method is also worth popularizing in similar performance-based projects

  19. Energy savings assessment for digital-to-analog converter boxes

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Cheung, Hoi Ying; Meier, Alan; Brown, Richard

    2011-01-01

    The Digital Television (DTV) Converter Box Coupon Program was administered by the U.S. government to subsidize purchases of digital-to-analog converter boxes, with up to two $40 coupons for each eligible household. In order to qualify as Coupon Eligible Converter Boxes (CECBs), these devices had to meet a number of minimum performance specifications, including energy efficiency standards. The Energy Star Program also established voluntary energy efficiency specifications that are more stringent than the CECB requirements. In this study, we measured the power and energy consumptions for a sample of 12 CECBs (including 6 Energy Star labeled models) in-use in homes and estimated aggregate energy savings produced by the energy efficiency policies. Based on the 35 million coupons redeemed through the end of the program, our analysis indicates that between 2500 and 3700 GWh per year are saved as a result of the energy efficiency policies implemented on digital-to-analog converter boxes. The energy savings generated are equivalent to the annual electricity use of 280,000 average US homes. - Research highlights: → We examined energy efficiency policies on digital-to-analog converter boxes in US. → The government assistance program resulted in high participation. → 35 million coupons were redeemed for the purchases of energy efficient DTAs. → Between 2500 and 3700 GWh per year are saved as a result of the policies. → Savings are equivalent to the annual electricity use of 280,000 average US homes.

  20. Incorporating Non-energy Benefits into Energy Savings Performance Contracts

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Larsen, Peter; Goldman, Charles; Gilligan, Donald; Singer, Terry

    2012-06-01

    This paper evaluates the issue of non-energy benefits within the context of the U.S. energy services company (ESCO) industry?a growing industry comprised of companies that provide energy savings and other benefits to customers through the use of performance-based contracting. Recent analysis has found that ESCO projects in the public/institutional sector, especially at K-12 schools, are using performance-based contracting, at the behest of the customers, to partially -- but not fully -- offset substantial accumulated deferred maintenance needs (e.g., asbestos removal, wiring) and measures that have very long paybacks (roof replacement). This trend is affecting the traditional economic measures policymakers use to evaluate success on a benefit to cost basis. Moreover, the value of non-energy benefits which can offset some or all of the cost of the non-energy measures -- including operations and maintenance (O&M) savings, avoided capital costs, and tradable pollution emissions allowances-- are not always incorporated into a formal cost-effectiveness analysis of ESCO projects. Nonenergy benefits are clearly important to customers, but state and federal laws that govern the acceptance of these types of benefits for ESCO projects vary widely (i.e., 0-100percent of allowable savings can come from one or more non-energy categories). Clear and consistent guidance on what types of savings are recognized in Energy Savings agreements under performance contracts is necessary, particularly where customers are searching for deep energy efficiency gains in the building sector.

  1. Rules of thumb in life-cycle savings models

    OpenAIRE

    Rodepeter, Ralf; Winter, Joachim

    1999-01-01

    We analyze life-cycle savings decisions when households use simple heuristics, or rules of thumb, rather than solve the underlying intertemporal optimization problem. The decision rules we explore are a simple Keynesian rule where consumption follows income; a simple consumption rule where only a fraction of positive income shocks is saved; a rule that corresponds to the permanent income hypothesis; and two rules that have been found in experimental studies. Using these rules, we simulate lif...

  2. Heat Saving Strategies in Sustainable Smart Energy Systems

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Henrik Lund

    2014-06-01

    Full Text Available This paper investigates to which extent heat should be saved rather than produced and to which extent district heating infrastructures, rather than individual heating solutions, should be used in future sustainable smart energy systems. Based on a concrete proposal to implement the Danish governmental 2050 fossil-free vision, this paper identifies marginal heat production costs and compares these to marginal heat savings costs for two different levels of district heating. A suitable least-cost heating strategy seems to be to invest in an approximately 50% decrease in net heat demands in new buildings and buildings that are being renovated anyway, while the implementation of heat savings in buildings that are not being renovated hardly pays. Moreover, the analysis points in the direction that a least-cost strategy will be to provide approximately 2/3 of the heat demand from district heating and the rest from individual heat pumps.

  3. Testing Hypotheses About Glacial Cycles Against the Observational Record

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kaufmann, Robert; Juselius, Katarina

    2013-01-01

    We estimate an identified cointegrated vector autoregression (CVAR) model of the climate system to test hypotheses about the physical mechanisms that may drive glacial cycles during the late Pleistocene. Results indicate that a permanent doubling of CO2 generates a 11.1oC rise in Antarctic...

  4. An analysis of the inter-relationship between savings product usage ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The article maintains that improved participation in the financial services industries seems to be dependent on satisfaction levels regarding financial services product usage. Empirical evidence shows that higher usage and higher satisfaction regarding basic savings products such as savings accounts, money market ...

  5. Self-regulatory processes and exercise adherence in older adults: executive function and self-efficacy effects.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McAuley, Edward; Mullen, Sean P; Szabo, Amanda N; White, Siobhan M; Wójcicki, Thomas R; Mailey, Emily L; Gothe, Neha P; Olson, Erin A; Voss, Michelle; Erickson, Kirk; Prakash, Ruchika; Kramer, Arthur F

    2011-09-01

    Self-efficacy and the use of self-regulatory strategies are consistently associated with physical activity behavior. Similarly, behavioral inhibition and cognitive resource allocation-indices of executive control function-have also been associated with this health behavior. The purpose of this study was to examine the hypothesis that self-efficacy mediates the relationship between self-regulatory processes, such as executive function, and sustained exercise behavior. Older adults (N=177, mean age=66.44 years) completed measures of executive function, self-reported use of self-regulatory strategies, and self-efficacy prior to and during the first month of a 12-month exercise intervention. Percentage of exercise classes attended over the following 11 months was used to represent adherence. Data were collected from 2007 to 2010 and analyzed in 2010-2011. Structural equation models were tested examining the effect of executive function and strategy use on adherence via efficacy. As hypothesized, results showed significant direct effects of two elements of executive function and of strategy use on self-efficacy and of efficacy on adherence. In addition, there were significant indirect effects of strategy use and executive function on adherence via self-efficacy. Higher levels of executive function and use of self-regulatory strategies at the start of an exercise program enhance beliefs in exercise capabilities, which in turn leads to greater adherence. Copyright © 2011 American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  6. Energy saving estimation on radiation process

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kaneko, Hideaki; Maekawa, H.; Ito, Y.; Nishikawa, I.; Fujii, H.; Murata, K.

    1982-01-01

    When the quantity of paint used for industrial coating is assumed to be 420,000 tons, it is estimated that the area being coated is 2.8 billion m 2 , the petroleum required for pretreatment steam, drying and baking is 1.68 million tons, and the required amount of energy saving is 120,000 tons per year in terms of petroleum. The authors examined how the adoption of electron beam curing for surface coating contributes to the energy saving. So far, it has been said that electron beam curing is more efficient than thermal or light curing in energy consumption, but the premise condition was not clear. The theoretical energy requirement for thermal curing, light curing and electron beam curing was calculated and compared. The comparison of the measured values was also performed. The amount of energy required for thermal curing, UV light curing and electron beam curing was roughly 100:10:1, and the cost of energy for them was 50:5:1. In spite of the large merit of electron beam curing, it has not spread as expected, because of the repayment cost of the facility and the cost of inert gas required for the process. Energy saving is brought about by electron beam curing, but the overall cost must be examined case by case. (Kako, I.)

  7. Regulatory guidance document

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1994-05-01

    The Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM) Program Management System Manual requires preparation of the OCRWM Regulatory Guidance Document (RGD) that addresses licensing, environmental compliance, and safety and health compliance. The document provides: regulatory compliance policy; guidance to OCRWM organizational elements to ensure a consistent approach when complying with regulatory requirements; strategies to achieve policy objectives; organizational responsibilities for regulatory compliance; guidance with regard to Program compliance oversight; and guidance on the contents of a project-level Regulatory Compliance Plan. The scope of the RGD includes site suitability evaluation, licensing, environmental compliance, and safety and health compliance, in accordance with the direction provided by Section 4.6.3 of the PMS Manual. Site suitability evaluation and regulatory compliance during site characterization are significant activities, particularly with regard to the YW MSA. OCRWM's evaluation of whether the Yucca Mountain site is suitable for repository development must precede its submittal of a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Accordingly, site suitability evaluation is discussed in Chapter 4, and the general statements of policy regarding site suitability evaluation are discussed in Section 2.1. Although much of the data and analyses may initially be similar, the licensing process is discussed separately in Chapter 5. Environmental compliance is discussed in Chapter 6. Safety and Health compliance is discussed in Chapter 7

  8. Glaucoma: Screening Can Save Your Sight!

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... of this page please turn Javascript on. Feature: Glaucoma Glaucoma: Screening Can Save Your Sight! Past Issues / Fall 2009 Table of Contents People with glaucoma see the world through a tunnel. Glaucoma is ...

  9. Effect of everolimus initiation and early calcineurin inhibitor withdrawal on myocardial FOXP3+ regulatory T cells in heart transplantation

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Mirza, Kiran; Gustafsson, Finn; Gullestad, Lars

    2016-01-01

    BACKGROUND: Through immunosuppression CD4+FoxP3+ regulatory T-cells (Tregs) play an indispensable role in allograft rejection. Post-HTx treatment with everolimus is associated with slower progression of cardiac allograft vasculopathy (CAV) - chronic rejection - than CNI based therapy. We hypothes......BACKGROUND: Through immunosuppression CD4+FoxP3+ regulatory T-cells (Tregs) play an indispensable role in allograft rejection. Post-HTx treatment with everolimus is associated with slower progression of cardiac allograft vasculopathy (CAV) - chronic rejection - than CNI based therapy. We...... hypothesized treatment with everolimus reduced the risk of CAV by modulating myocardial FoxP3 levels. METHODS: 15 patients from the Schedule trial comparing everolimus, MMF, steroid and early CNI (Everolimus, n=8) withdrawal to conventional CNI based immunosuppression (Controls, n=7) after de novo HTx were...

  10. Saving more to consume more. EDF's communication ambiguities during the energy saving era

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bouvier, Yves

    2012-01-01

    Since 1974, EDF is placed between a communication scheme imposed for energy savings and an industrial strategy of massive investment in nuclear power. In ten years, the company managed to increase households electricity consumption without advertising, due in particular to electric heating. But strong tensions were generated by this situation and led the company to develop an institutional communication to the employees and to the general public

  11. To Save or to Consume: Linking Growth Theory with the Keynesian Model

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kwok, Yun-kwong

    2007-01-01

    In the neoclassical growth theory, higher saving rate gives rise to higher output per capita. However, in the Keynesian model, higher saving rate causes lower consumption, which may lead to a recession. Students may ask, "Should we save or should we consume?" In most of the macroeconomics textbooks, economic growth and Keynesian economics are in…

  12. Value drivers: an approach for estimating health and disease management program savings.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Phillips, V L; Becker, Edmund R; Howard, David H

    2013-12-01

    Health and disease management (HDM) programs have faced challenges in documenting savings related to their implementation. The objective of this eliminate study was to describe OptumHealth's (Optum) methods for estimating anticipated savings from HDM programs using Value Drivers. Optum's general methodology was reviewed, along with details of 5 high-use Value Drivers. The results showed that the Value Driver approach offers an innovative method for estimating savings associated with HDM programs. The authors demonstrated how real-time savings can be estimated for 5 Value Drivers commonly used in HDM programs: (1) use of beta-blockers in treatment of heart disease, (2) discharge planning for high-risk patients, (3) decision support related to chronic low back pain, (4) obesity management, and (5) securing transportation for primary care. The validity of savings estimates is dependent on the type of evidence used to gauge the intervention effect, generating changes in utilization and, ultimately, costs. The savings estimates derived from the Value Driver method are generally reasonable to conservative and provide a valuable framework for estimating financial impacts from evidence-based interventions.

  13. Advancing the literature on designing audit and feedback interventions: identifying theory-informed hypotheses.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Colquhoun, Heather L; Carroll, Kelly; Eva, Kevin W; Grimshaw, Jeremy M; Ivers, Noah; Michie, Susan; Sales, Anne; Brehaut, Jamie C

    2017-09-29

    Audit and feedback (A&F) is a common strategy for helping health providers to implement evidence into practice. Despite being extensively studied, health care A&F interventions remain variably effective, with overall effect sizes that have not improved since 2003. Contributing to this stagnation is the fact that most health care A&F interventions have largely been designed without being informed by theoretical understanding from the behavioral and social sciences. To determine if the trend can be improved, the objective of this study was to develop a list of testable, theory-informed hypotheses about how to design more effective A&F interventions. Using purposive sampling, semi-structured 60-90-min telephone interviews were conducted with experts in theories related to A&F from a range of fields (e.g., cognitive, health and organizational psychology, medical decision-making, economics). Guided by detailed descriptions of A&F interventions from the health care literature, interviewees described how they would approach the problem of designing improved A&F interventions. Specific, theory-informed hypotheses about the conditions for effective design and delivery of A&F interventions were elicited from the interviews. The resulting hypotheses were assigned by three coders working independently into themes, and categories of themes, in an iterative process. We conducted 28 interviews and identified 313 theory-informed hypotheses, which were placed into 30 themes. The 30 themes included hypotheses related to the following five categories: A&F recipient (seven themes), content of the A&F (ten themes), process of delivery of the A&F (six themes), behavior that was the focus of the A&F (three themes), and other (four themes). We have identified a set of testable, theory-informed hypotheses from a broad range of behavioral and social science that suggest conditions for more effective A&F interventions. This work demonstrates the breadth of perspectives about A&F from non

  14. Investigating the distribution of the value of travel time savings

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Fosgerau, Mogens

    2006-01-01

    The distribution of the value of travel time savings (VTTS) is investigated employing various nonparametric techniques to a large dataset originating from a stated choice experiment. The data contain choices between a fast and more expensive alternative and a slow and less expensive alternative....... Increasing the implicit price of time leads to an increased share of respondents who decline to pay to save time. But a significant proportion of respondents, 13%, remain willing to pay to save time at the highest price of time in the design. This means that the right tail of the VTTS distribution...

  15. Theory and Practice of the Public Sector Savings: The Case of Czech Regions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Milan PŮČEK

    2014-06-01

    Full Text Available In recent years, the necessity to allocate resources in economically rational ways has been amplified in the context of budget austerity measures and the overall tendency for balanced public budgets. Under these long-term circumstances, political leaders and public sector managers will be motivated to allocate available resources in economic, effective and purposeful ways, thus reducing waste of resources and seeking rational savings. The study shows some ways of achieving that goals by finding rational savings in the performance of delegated central government administration. The study analyzes expenditures and revenues for those tasks of central government administration that are delegated to regions in the Czech Republic. Based on the proposed theoretical concept of public sector savings and on the analysis of secondary and primary data, it assesses possibilities for achieving regional savings in delegated central government administration. Calculations based on empirical data demonstrate that regional governments have space for internal savings; benchmarking comparison and simulations confirm the possibilities for reducing waste of resources and achieving rational savings. Total calculated savings for all regions (for the year 2009 range between EUR 16 million and 29 million according to simulations, and the highest savings would be achieved by Central Bohemia.

  16. 75 FR 11166 - Joint Meeting of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-03-10

    ... the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission; Notice of Joint Meeting of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission March 2, 2010. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) will hold...

  17. Energy saving potential in existing industrial compressors

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Vittorini, Diego; Cipollone, Roberto

    2016-01-01

    The Compressed Air Sector accounts for a mean 10% worldwide electricity consumption, which ensures about its importance, when energy saving and CO_2 emissions reduction are in question. Since the compressors alone account for 15% overall industry electricity consumption, it appears vital to pay attention to machine performances. The paper presents an overview of present compressor technology and focuses on saving directions for screw and sliding vanes machines, according to data provided by the Compressed Air and Gas Institute and PNEUROP. Data were processed to obtain consistency with fixed reference pressures and organized as a function of main operating parameters. Each sub-term, contributing to the overall efficiency (adiabatic, volumetric, mechanical, electric, organic), was considered separately: the analysis showed that the thermodynamic improvement during compression achievable by splitting the compression in two stages, with a lower compression ratio, opens the way to significantly reduce the energy specific consumption. - Highlights: • Compressors technology overview in industrial compressed air systems. • Market compressors efficiency baseline definition. • Energy breakdown and evaluation of main efficiency terms. • Assessment of air cooling-related energy saving potential. • Energy specific consumption reduction through dual stage compression.

  18. The socioeconomic impact of energy saving renovation measures in urban buildings

    OpenAIRE

    Mikulić, Davor; Rašić Bakarić, Ivana; Slijepčević, Sunčana

    2016-01-01

    The purpose of the paper is to investigate the role of measures oriented to energy savings in residential buildings in the economic development at the regional level. The aim of the paper is to estimate overall socio-economic impact of energy saving renovation measures in the Croatian urban areas. Impact assessment is based on input–output methodology which is able to quantify direct and indirect effects of investment in the energy saving projects on the economic activity and employment...

  19. Radioisotope savings in industry and agriculture

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    NONE

    1964-01-15

    Benefits and savings achieved in industry and agriculture were described by leading experts from six different countries at a public discussion organized by the Agency on 24 September 1963, during the last IAEA General Conference.

  20. Energy saving work of frequency controlled induction cage machine

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Gnacinski, P. [Gdynia Maritime University, Department of Ship Electrical Power Engineering, Morska Str. 8, 81-225 Gdynia (Poland)]. E-mail: piotrg@am.gdynia.pl

    2007-03-15

    Energy saving work, understood as lowering the supply voltage when load torque is much less than rated, is one way of reducing power losses in an induction cage machine working with a variable load. Reduction in power losses also affects the thermal properties of an induction machine because the energy saving work allows the temperature rise of the windings to decrease. Thanks to a lower temperature of the windings, the same load torque can be carried by a machine of less rated power. The ability of energy saving work to reduce the temperature of windings depends on the thermal properties of an induction machine, which are different in the case of a machine with foreign ventilation and its own ventilation. This paper deals with the thermal effect of energy saving work on a frequency controlled induction cage machine. A comparison of the properties of a machine with its own and outside ventilation is presented. The results of the investigations are shown for a 3 kW induction cage machine with the two previously mentioned ways of ventilation: one provided with a fan placed on a shaft and the other provided with a fan driven by an auxiliary motor.

  1. Energy saving work of frequency controlled induction cage machine

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gnacinski, P.

    2007-01-01

    Energy saving work, understood as lowering the supply voltage when load torque is much less than rated, is one way of reducing power losses in an induction cage machine working with a variable load. Reduction in power losses also affects the thermal properties of an induction machine because the energy saving work allows the temperature rise of the windings to decrease. Thanks to a lower temperature of the windings, the same load torque can be carried by a machine of less rated power. The ability of energy saving work to reduce the temperature of windings depends on the thermal properties of an induction machine, which are different in the case of a machine with foreign ventilation and its own ventilation. This paper deals with the thermal effect of energy saving work on a frequency controlled induction cage machine. A comparison of the properties of a machine with its own and outside ventilation is presented. The results of the investigations are shown for a 3 kW induction cage machine with the two previously mentioned ways of ventilation: one provided with a fan placed on a shaft and the other provided with a fan driven by an auxiliary motor

  2. Reported Energy and Cost Savings from the DOE ESPC Program: FY 2015

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Slattery, Bob S. [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

    2017-01-01

    The objective of this work was to determine the realization rate of energy and cost savings from the Department of Energy’s Energy Savings Performance Contract (ESPC) program based on information reported by the energy services companies (ESCOs) that are carrying out ESPC projects at federal sites. Information was extracted from 151 Measurement and Verification (M&V) reports to determine reported, estimated, and guaranteed cost savings and reported and estimated energy savings for the previous contract year. Because the quality of the reports varied, it was not possible to determine all of these parameters for each project.

  3. Fuel Savings and Aerodynamic Drag Reduction from Rail Car Covers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Storms, Bruce; Salari, Kambiz; Babb, Alex

    2008-01-01

    The potential for energy savings by reducing the aerodynamic drag of rail cars is significant. A previous study of aerodynamic drag of coal cars suggests that a 25% reduction in drag of empty cars would correspond to a 5% fuel savings for a round trip [1]. Rail statistics for the United States [2] report that approximately 5.7 billion liters of diesel fuel were consumed for coal transportation in 2002, so a 5% fuel savings would total 284 million liters. This corresponds to 2% of Class I railroad fuel consumption nationwide. As part of a DOE-sponsored study, the aerodynamic drag of scale rail cars was measured in a wind tunnel. The goal of the study was to measure the drag reduction of various rail-car cover designs. The cover designs tested yielded an average drag reduction of 43% relative to empty cars corresponding to an estimated round-trip fuel savings of 9%.

  4. Automatic Bayes Factors for Testing Equality- and Inequality-Constrained Hypotheses on Variances.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Böing-Messing, Florian; Mulder, Joris

    2018-05-03

    In comparing characteristics of independent populations, researchers frequently expect a certain structure of the population variances. These expectations can be formulated as hypotheses with equality and/or inequality constraints on the variances. In this article, we consider the Bayes factor for testing such (in)equality-constrained hypotheses on variances. Application of Bayes factors requires specification of a prior under every hypothesis to be tested. However, specifying subjective priors for variances based on prior information is a difficult task. We therefore consider so-called automatic or default Bayes factors. These methods avoid the need for the user to specify priors by using information from the sample data. We present three automatic Bayes factors for testing variances. The first is a Bayes factor with equal priors on all variances, where the priors are specified automatically using a small share of the information in the sample data. The second is the fractional Bayes factor, where a fraction of the likelihood is used for automatic prior specification. The third is an adjustment of the fractional Bayes factor such that the parsimony of inequality-constrained hypotheses is properly taken into account. The Bayes factors are evaluated by investigating different properties such as information consistency and large sample consistency. Based on this evaluation, it is concluded that the adjusted fractional Bayes factor is generally recommendable for testing equality- and inequality-constrained hypotheses on variances.

  5. Saving for delivery through technology: an inquiry into an electronic commitment savings product for maternal healthcare in Kenya.

    Science.gov (United States)

    van Bastelaer, Thierry; Woodman, Benjamin; Chatterji, Minki; Long, David

    2016-10-01

    Many women in low-income countries cannot afford maternal healthcare services. Changamka, a Kenyan company, developed an electronic, stored-value card to help pregnant women save for maternal healthcare at a Nairobi hospital. This paper reports results from a mixed-methods process evaluation of the card's implementation. The study found high levels of uptake and identified several benefits of the program, such as facilitating payment for services. The evaluation also identified several challenges. Most users completed only one transaction before discontinuing card use; only 6% of women who acquired the card used it to pay for delivery, and slightly less than 1% used it as it was originally intended-to pay for several antenatal care visits and for delivery. According to respondents, the main reason for this discontinuation was a lack of understanding about how to use the card. Users were, on average, of a higher socioeconomic and educational status than non-card users. Most users obtained the card in their third trimester, and among those who used the card to save for delivery, most started to do so too late in pregnancy to accumulate sufficient savings to pay for that service. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

  6. A review of different strategies for HVAC energy saving

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Vakiloroaya, Vahid; Samali, Bijan; Fakhar, Ahmad; Pishghadam, Kambiz

    2014-01-01

    Highlights: • Various strategies for HVAC energy saving are described and reviewed. • The influence of each strategy on the HVAC energy saving is investigated. • Combination of existing air conditioning technologies appears to be effective for the energy conservation and comfort. • A comparison study between these approaches is carried out. • Changing the HVAC configuration has the potential to increase or reduce energy savings, depending on several factors. - Abstract: Decreasing the energy consumption of heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems is becoming increasingly important due to rising cost of fossil fuels and environmental concerns. Therefore, finding novel ways to reduce energy consumption in buildings without compromising comfort and indoor air quality is an ongoing research challenge. One proven way of achieving energy efficiency in HVAC systems is to design systems that use novel configurations of existing system components. Each HVAC discipline has specific design requirements and each presents opportunities for energy savings. Energy efficient HVAC systems can be created by re-configuring traditional systems to make more strategic use of existing system parts. Recent research has demonstrated that a combination of existing air conditioning technologies can offer effective solutions for energy conservation and thermal comfort. This paper investigates and reviews the different technologies and approaches, and demonstrates their ability to improve the performance of HVAC systems in order to reduce energy consumption. For each strategy, a brief description is first presented and then by reviewing the previous studies, the influence of that method on the HVAC energy saving is investigated. Finally, a comparison study between these approaches is carried out

  7. Directions of organisational and low-cost energy saving of engineering enterprises

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dzhedzhula Viacheslav V.

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available The article analyses directions of energy saving of industrial enterprises. Taking into account the tendency to continuous growth of cost of energy resources, introduction of measures that would allow reduction of energy consumption of enterprises is an urgent task. One of the most important obstacles in the process of introduction of energy efficient solutions are fund limits and low awareness of owners and managers of industrial enterprises. The article offers a new classification of energy saving measures: apart from traditional expense and organisation measures it introduces the low-cost measures notion. It offers to consider low-cost those measures that are realised by the enterprise by means of own funds, moreover, their repayment term is not more than one year. It offers analytical expression for identification of annual funds saving from introduction of low-cost measures. It considers the process of identification of saving of funds from introduction of some of the main low-cost measures in detail: replacement of lighting units, balancing of ventilation networks and elimination of water leakages from pipelines and water supply equipment. Based on the analysis of bibliography information the article provides a list of main measures on energy saving, which could be referred to the low-cost ones. The proposed approaches would allow paying more attention to practical aspects of realisation of the concept of energy saving in the industry.

  8. Energy saving in Swedish households. The (relative) importance of environmental attitudes

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Martinsson, Johan; Lundqvist, Lennart J.; Sundstroem, Aksel

    2011-01-01

    The objectives for energy saving in the housing sector set by recent Swedish energy and climate policies are quite demanding. This article uses nation-wide Swedish survey data from 2004 to 2007 to explore the potential for achieving those targets. Earlier findings that socio-economic characteristics such as age, housing type and income are strongly linked to higher propensities to save on heating and hot water usage are confirmed by ordered logistic regression models. However, general environmental attitudes are also found to play a crucial role. When assessing the relative importance of socio-economic factors and environmental attitudes, the effect on energy saving is generally greater for the former than the latter. In addition, important interaction effects are identified. In relative terms, the effect of environmental attitudes is clearly stronger among households in apartment blocks than among those in detached housing, and stronger among households with higher income than among those with lower income. We end by discussing the implications for the selection and targeting of policy measures to tap the energy savings potential in the population. - Highlights: → We use Swedish survey data to analyse the determinants of household energy saving. → Housing type plays a crucial role for individuals' propensity to save energy. → Environmental attitudes are clearly more important in high-income households. → Environmental attitudes are clearly more important for people in apartment blocks.

  9. Antecedents of employee electricity saving behavior in organizations: An empirical study based on norm activation model

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zhang, Yixiang; Wang, Zhaohua; Zhou, Guanghui

    2013-01-01

    China is one of the major energy-consuming countries, and is under great pressure to promote energy saving and reduce domestic energy consumption. Employees constitute an important target group for energy saving. However, only a few research efforts have been paid to study what drives employee energy saving behavior in organizations. To fill this gap, drawing on norm activation model (NAM), we built a research model to study antecedents of employee electricity saving behavior in organizations. The model was empirically tested using survey data collected from office workers in Beijing, China. Results show that personal norm positively influences employee electricity saving behavior. Organizational electricity saving climate negatively moderates the effect of personal norm on electricity saving behavior. Awareness of consequences, ascription of responsibility, and organizational electricity saving climate positively influence personal norm. Furthermore, awareness of consequences positively influences ascription of responsibility. This paper contributes to the energy saving behavior literature by building a theoretical model of employee electricity saving behavior which is understudied in the current literature. Based on the empirical results, implications on how to promote employee electricity saving are discussed. - Highlights: • We studied employee electricity saving behavior based on norm activation model. • The model was tested using survey data collected from office workers in China. • Personal norm positively influences employee′s electricity saving behavior. • Electricity saving climate negatively moderates personal norm′s effect. • This research enhances our understanding of employee electricity saving behavior

  10. 75 FR 63878 - Self-Regulatory Organizations; Self-Regulatory Organizations; Notice of Filing and Immediate...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-18

    ...-Regulatory Organizations; Self-Regulatory Organizations; Notice of Filing and Immediate Effectiveness of...(b)(1). \\2\\ 17 CFR 240.19b-4. I. Self-Regulatory Organization's Statement of the Terms of Substance... Public Reference Room. II. Self-Regulatory Organization's Statement of the Purpose of, and Statutory...

  11. Genome-wide discovery of drug-dependent human liver regulatory elements.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Robin P Smith

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available Inter-individual variation in gene regulatory elements is hypothesized to play a causative role in adverse drug reactions and reduced drug activity. However, relatively little is known about the location and function of drug-dependent elements. To uncover drug-associated elements in a genome-wide manner, we performed RNA-seq and ChIP-seq using antibodies against the pregnane X receptor (PXR and three active regulatory marks (p300, H3K4me1, H3K27ac on primary human hepatocytes treated with rifampin or vehicle control. Rifampin and PXR were chosen since they are part of the CYP3A4 pathway, which is known to account for the metabolism of more than 50% of all prescribed drugs. We selected 227 proximal promoters for genes with rifampin-dependent expression or nearby PXR/p300 occupancy sites and assayed their ability to induce luciferase in rifampin-treated HepG2 cells, finding only 10 (4.4% that exhibited drug-dependent activity. As this result suggested a role for distal enhancer modules, we searched more broadly to identify 1,297 genomic regions bearing a conditional PXR occupancy as well as all three active regulatory marks. These regions are enriched near genes that function in the metabolism of xenobiotics, specifically members of the cytochrome P450 family. We performed enhancer assays in rifampin-treated HepG2 cells for 42 of these sequences as well as 7 sequences that overlap linkage-disequilibrium blocks defined by lead SNPs from pharmacogenomic GWAS studies, revealing 15/42 and 4/7 to be functional enhancers, respectively. A common African haplotype in one of these enhancers in the GSTA locus was found to exhibit potential rifampin hypersensitivity. Combined, our results further suggest that enhancers are the predominant targets of rifampin-induced PXR activation, provide a genome-wide catalog of PXR targets and serve as a model for the identification of drug-responsive regulatory elements.

  12. Should the decline in the personal saving rate be a cause for concern?

    OpenAIRE

    C. Alan Garner

    2006-01-01

    The personal saving rate has received particular attention recently because saving was negative in 2005 for the first time since the Great Depression. Although saving declined in other developed countries during this period, the U.S. decline was more pronounced than in most of these countries. ; A major concern is whether U.S. households are providing adequately for long-term needs, such as future retirement and medical expenses. In addition, low personal saving has created short-run concerns...

  13. 12 CFR 563e.26 - Small savings association performance standards.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 12 Banks and Banking 5 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Small savings association performance standards. 563e.26 Section 563e.26 Banks and Banking OFFICE OF THRIFT SUPERVISION, DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY COMMUNITY REINVESTMENT Standards for Assessing Performance § 563e.26 Small savings association performance...

  14. The risk of divorce and household saving behavior

    OpenAIRE

    Libertad González; Berkay Özcan

    2008-01-01

    We analyze the impact of an increase in the risk of divorce on the saving behaviour of married couples. From a theoretical perspective, the expected sign of the effect is ambiguous. We take advantage of the legalization of divorce in Ireland in 1996 as an exogenous increase in the likelihood of marital dissolution. We analyze the saving behaviour over time of couples who were married before the law was passed. We propose a difference-in-differences approach where we use as comparison groups e...

  15. Development of Android based Smart Power Saving System

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gupta, Ashutosh; Kumar, Pradeep; Ghosh, Tathagata; Bhawna, Shruthi. S.

    2017-08-01

    An android based smart power saving system has been presented in this paper. For this purpose, an application is developed for controlling the intensity of an AC supply using a dimmer circuit in android platform and to monitor the current flow on different intensity level a current sensor is used in the circuit. Dimmer circuit provides a 16-different intensity level to control the flow of current and help in power saving. The system is very simple and robust as it is based on android platform.

  16. Estimation on oil demand and oil saving potential of China's road transport sector

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lin, Boqiang; Xie, Chunping

    2013-01-01

    China is currently in the stage of industrialization and urbanization, which is characterized by rigid energy demand and rapid growth of energy consumption. Therefore, energy conservation will become a major strategy for China in a transition to low-carbon economy. China's transport industry is of high energy consumption. In 2010, oil consumption in transport industry takes up 38.2% of the country's total oil demand, of which 23.6% is taken up by road transport sector. As a result, oil saving in China's road transport sector is vital to the whole nation. The co-integration method is developed to find a long-run relationship between oil consumption and affecting factors such as GDP, road condition, labor productivity and oil price, to estimate oil demand and to predict future oil saving potential in China's transport sector under different oil-saving scenarios. Monte Carlo simulation is further used for risk analysis. Results show that under BAU condition, oil demand of China's road transport sector will reach 278.5 million ton of oil equivalents (MTOE) in 2020. Oil saving potential will be 86 MTOE and 131 MTOE under moderate oil-saving scenario and advanced oil-saving scenario, respectively. This paper provides a reference to establishing oil saving policy for China's road transport sector. - Highlights: • We adopt the co-integration model to estimate oil demand and oil saving potential of China's road transport sector. • Monte Carlo simulation is further used for risk analysis. • GDP, ratio of classified highway, labor productivity and oil price are main factors affecting oil consumption. • Scenario analysis approach is applied to calculate oil saving potential under different energy saving scenarios. • Future policy for oil conservation in China's road transport sector is suggested

  17. Saving energy in 1-D : tailoring energy-saving advice using a Rasch-based energy recommender system

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Starke, Alain; Willemsen, Martijn; Snijders, Chris; Ge, Mouhzi; Ricci, Francesco

    2015-01-01

    Although there are numerous possibilities to save energy, conservation initiatives often do not tailor their content to the consumer. By considering energy conservation as a one-dimensional construct, where different behaviors have different execution difficulties, we have set out a Rasch-based

  18. Savings and extinction of conditioned eyeblink responses in fragile X syndrome

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Smit, A E; van der Geest, J N; Vellema, M

    2008-01-01

    with FRAXA. In the present behavioral study, long-term effects of deficiency of FMRP were investigated by examining the acquisition, savings and extinction of delay eyeblink conditioning in male individuals with FRAXA. In the acquisition experiment, subjects with FRAXA displayed a significantly poor...... of the FMRP affects cerebellar motor learning. The normal performance in the savings experiment and aberrant performance in the acquisition and extinction experiments of individuals with FRAXA suggest that different mechanisms underlie acquisition, savings and extinction of cerebellar motor learning....

  19. Measuring scarce water saving from interregional virtual water flows in China

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhao, X.; Li, Y. P.; Yang, H.; Liu, W. F.; Tillotson, M. R.; Guan, D.; Yi, Y.; Wang, H.

    2018-05-01

    Trade of commodities can lead to virtual water flows between trading partners. When commodities flow from regions of high water productivity to regions of low water productivity, the trade has the potential to generate water saving. However, this accounting of water saving does not account for the water scarcity status in different regions. It could be that the water saving generated from this trade occurs at the expense of the intensified water scarcity in the exporting region, and exerts limited effect on water stress alleviation in importing regions. In this paper, we propose an approach to measure the scarce water saving associated with virtual water trade (measuring in water withdrawal/use). The scarce water is quantified by multiplying the water use in production with the water stress index (WSI). We assessed the scarce water saving/loss through interprovincial trade within China using a multi-region input-output table from 2010. The results show that interprovincial trade resulted in 14.2 km3 of water loss without considering water stress, but only 0.4 km3 scarce water loss using the scarce water concept. Among the 435 total connections of virtual water flows, 254 connections contributed to 20.2 km3 of scarce water saving. Most of these connections are virtual water flows from provinces with lower WSI to that with higher WSI. Conversely, 175 connections contributed to 20.6 km3 of scarce water loss. The virtual water flow connections between Xinjiang and other provinces stood out as the biggest contributors, accounting for 66% of total scarce water loss. The results show the importance of assessing water savings generated from trade with consideration of both water scarcity status and water productivity across regions. Identifying key connections of scarce water saving is useful in guiding interregional economic restructuring towards water stress alleviation, a major goal of China’s sustainable development strategy.

  20. The role of CSR in promoting companies’ energy-saving actions in two Asian cities

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hori, Shiro; Shinozaki, Mami; Nogata, Daisuke; Fujita, Toshiyuki

    2014-01-01

    In Asian developing countries, energy saving has become a crucial issue in sustainable development. However, in countries that possess weak government regulations and market mechanisms, industries are expected to save energy voluntarily. Therefore, corporate social responsibility (CSR) can serve as an important incentive to encourage companies to take voluntary actions. In this paper, we analyze CSR recognition and energy-saving actions taken by companies located in two Asian cities. The results of a questionnaire survey revealed that a positive relation exists between CSR recognition and energy saving. In developing countries, CSR develops based on concerns expressed by local cultures and communities. This indicates that the positive relationships that exist between CSR and energy-saving actions reflect the social norms of these communities. The results suggest that policies that encourage companies to enhance their CSR activities in society can serve as effective incentives to encourage energy-saving actions. - Highlights: • In Asian cities, energy saving has become a crucial issue in sustainable development. • CSR can serve as an important incentive to take voluntary energy saving actions. • The survey revealed a positive relation between CSR and energy saving. • The policies enhancing their CSR activities in society can serve as effective incentives