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Agent-based modeling: Insights into consumer behavior, urban dynamics, grid management, and market interactions
Get PDFA future sustainable energy system is expected to be digital, de-central, de-carbonized, and democratized. As the transition unfolds, new and diverse actors of various sizes will emerge in different segments. Thereby, the future energy system could shift its attention to the actors’ behavior than finding an optimum based on the physical system. Agent based modeling tools can reflect decisions from several actors in a decentralized and digital market setting. Then, such tools can enable a sustainable energy transition.
This work sets out to investigate how agent-based models could tackle various challenges in energy transition. This investigation covers four segments of the energy system — consumer, city, microgrid, and market. It starts with the consumer where consumer behavior is modeled. From there, expands to a city level where the dynamic characteristics of a city are simulated. The next step is distributed microgrids, particularly how to optimally plan the grid expansions. The final step in the investigation is simulating an energy market with national and international stakeholders. The selection of models presents how agent-based models can be applied to decision-making processes in the aforementioned segments. Then a novel framework with metrics for characterization is proposed and validated that addresses the challenge — which are the characteristics that make an agent-based model a better fit to tackle a modeling objective? Additionally, the framework identifies the existing knowledge gaps and the scope for further developments.
In summary, this work outlines how far agent-based models have come to tackle energy system challenges to sustain the energy transition. This work specifically highlights the scope, advantages, challenges, and trends of the agent-based models in energy sector applications. Moreover, this study finds that agent-based models reflect what a solution could be more than the traditional modeling practice that focuses on what a solution should be
The temporal copulatory patterns of female rat sexual behavior
Get PDFFemale sexual behavior is a naturally rewarding activity that plays an important role in reproduction and species
survival. For female rats, regulating the timing of sexual interactions is essential for optimizing mating satisfaction and enhancing the physiological conditions needed for successful fertilization. So far, traditional research
on female sexual behavior has relied on a limited set of behavioral parameters, which has certain shortcomings.
To address this, our study aimed to develop a more detailed behavioral framework for assessing temporal
copulatory patterns in female rats. We compared fully receptive females and less-receptive females, while also
investigating the effects of (R)-(+)-8-OH-DPAT, a 5-HT1A receptor agonist known for its inhibitory impact on
female sexual behavior. Additionally, we examined how sexual experience and pacing conditions influence these
copulatory patterns. Our results revealed that female rats engage in structured patterns of sexual bouts and timeouts, with higher receptivity leading to more sexual bouts and shorter time-outs. This suggests that sexual bouts
can be viewed as an indicator of copulatory speed, while time-outs reflect motivation to continue mating. Sexual
experience did not enhance sexual performance but did result in females receiving more copulatory events from
males. Lastly, we found that the conditions under which mating occurs (paced vs. non-paced) may not significantly impact copulatory behavior in fully-receptive females, but could be more relevant for less-receptive females. Despite this, paced mating conditions remain preferable for studying female sexual behavior
Can Individual Placement and Support (IPS) contribute to change the life of individuals experiencing mental health problems? Challenges related to Efficacy, Effectiveness, and Implementation
Get PDFMental health problems are leading cause of disability in Western societies, with a rising proportion due to mental health problems among young people. Employment is beneficial for health and well-being and is a human right for all. Employment is a key goal for individuals with severe mental health problems, and the vocational rehabilitation approach, Individual Placement and Support (IPS), has proven efficacious. However, its implementation remains slow.
This thesis explores some potential barriers to the implementation of IPS through three objectives:
1. Is IPS efficacy generalizable across countries and context? (Paper I)
2. Do public employment service (PES) employees have attitudes compatible with the principles of IPS? (Paper II)
3. Will IPS implementation have a measurable effect on employment outcomes at a societal level? (Paper III)
A systematic review and meta-analysis (paper I), shows IPS doubles employment rates compared to traditional vocational rehabilitation. The efficacy is robust across countries and is only marginally affected by strong legal protections against dismissals.
To study PES employees' attitudes, we use a cross-sectional study design and conduct a survey at two time points, investigating PES attitudes towards IPS principles. PES employees in municipalities with IPS have significantly more IPS-compliant attitudes compared to those without IPS. Attitudinal changes over time is minimal and do not significantly differ between regions.
A difference-in-differences design using longitudinal registry data is used to compare the number of workdays per year for young adults receiving a temporary health-related rehabilitation benefit in a municipality where IPS is implemented versus ten municipalities without IPS. We find a significant positive impact on employment outcomes at the societal level.
The thesis concludes that it is now time to intensify efforts to implement IPS, given its proven efficacy, positive reception among PES employees, and significant positive societal impact on employment outcomes for young adults.Psykiske helseproblemer er en av hovedårsakene til uførhet, og en økende andel knyttet til psykiske helseproblemer blant unge voksne. Arbeid anses generelt helsefremmende, en viktig kilde til økonomisk uavhengighet og betraktes som en grunnleggende menneskerettighet. Å delta i arbeid er et viktig mål for personer med alvorlige psykiske helseproblemer, og den arbeidsrettede rehabiliteringsmodellen Individual Placement and Support (IPS) har vist seg effektiv. Likevel har implementering vist seg utfordrende.
Avhandlingen utforsker mulige barrierer for IPS-implementering gjennom tre forskningsspørsmål:
1. Er effekten av IPS generaliserbar på tvers av land og kontekst? (Artikkel I)
2. Har ansatte i NAV holdninger i tråd med IPS-prinsippene? (Artikkel II)
3. Vil IPS-implementering føre til en målbar effekt på sysselsettingsresultater på samfunnsnivå? (Artikkel III)
En systematisk litteraturgjennomgang og meta-analyse viser at IPS dobler sysselsettingsraten sammenlignet med tradisjonell arbeidsrettet rehabilitering. Effekten holder seg på tvers av land med ulike arbeidsmarkedsrelaterte faktorer, og blir i liten grad svekket av sterk lovbeskyttelse mot oppsigelser.
En tverrsnittsstudie benyttes for å undersøke holdningene til NAV-ansatte overfor IPS-prinsippene gjennom en spørreundersøkelse på to tidspunkt. NAV-ansatte med IPS-erfaring viser mer positive holdninger sammenlignet med dem uten IPS-erfaring. Holdningsendringene var minimale over tid og skilte seg ikke signifikant mellom regioner.
For å undersøke om IPS-implementering kan gi målbar effekt på sysselsetting på samfunnsnivå, sammenlignes Bodø med ti sammenlignbare kommuner uten IPS. Differansen i sysselsetting undersøkes både før og etter IPS-implementering i Bodø. Studien baserer seg på registerdata for analyse av effekter, og suppleres med administrative data på implementering. Resultatene viser en positiv effekt på arbeidsdager per år for unge voksne som mottar arbeidsavklaringspenger i Bodø kommune.
Avhandlingen konkluderer med at IPS opprettholder god effekt også i generøse velferdssamfunn, NAV-ansatte har holdninger i tråd med denne måten å jobbe på og tverrsektoriell forpliktende samhandling viser lovende effekter på sysselsettingsresultater for unge voksne på samfunnsnivå
Monitoring, governmental data access and the invocation of Article 8 ECHR by legal persons
Get PDFThe European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) grants the rights enshrined in Article 8 to ‘everyone’. The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has interpreted legal persons as falling within the scope of ‘everyone’ in various judgments, primarily concerning governmental searches and seizures. With the rise of digital technology, corporations now hold vast amounts of personal data, creating growing pressure to disclose such data to governmental surveillance agencies. This article examines ECtHR case law and applies theories of legal personality to assess the extent to which legal persons may invoke Article 8 in cases of governmental interferences affecting associated natural persons' rights. After outlining the legal framework, the article applies it to two use cases: governmental control of fishing vessels to identify regulatory infringements and signal intelligence practices affecting legal persons operating telecommunication infrastructure. These examples illustrate two types of governmental interference; methods impacting natural persons through data held by legal persons and interferences directed at the legal person itself. The article seeks to clarify the scope of rights under Article 8 for legal persons. The question of whether such interferences are proportionate is beyond the article's scope and remains a topic for future research
Static and dynamic stability of a polar ship in the arctic region with ice accumulation
Get PDFThe harsh and complex marine environment of the Arctic region poses significant challenges for polar ships, particularly in cases where ice accumulates on ship surfaces, which can severely influence vessel stability. This study presents a comprehensive analysis of both static and dynamic stability for a polar ship subjected to ice accumulation, a topic of critical scientific importance and engineering relevance for ensuring the safety of Arctic navigation. Specifically, a simplified model for predicting ice accumulation weight is proposed, which uses the spray rate, icing coefficient, and hull area segmentation to facilitate accurate and efficient forecasting of ice accumulation on ships. The effects of ice accumulation on the static stability of a polar ship during several different hours of icing events are compared with those of a no-ice case under typical marine meteorological and hydrological environmental conditions, and the requirements in the IMO IS code are verified. Additionally, to evaluate dynamic stability, a roll motion mathematical model is developed to predict the roll response of a polar ship with ice accumulation, with roll damping parameters obtained via free-decay computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. Furthermore, the average conditional exceedance rate (ACER) method is applied to conduct an extreme value analysis of the roll response under the action of wind and waves, enabling a thorough assessment of the ultimate dynamic stability with ice accumulation. This study systematically analyzes the stability loss of a polar ship induced by ice accumulation, which can contribute to the design of polar equipment and the safety of polar navigation
Et alternativ til elektrifisering av Melkøya finnes. Bærekraftig er det også
Get PDFSource at https://www.dn.no/innlegg/elektrifisering/barekraft/mikroalger/et-alternativ-til-elektrifisering-av-melkoya-finnes-barekraftig-er-det-ogsa/2-1-1754107.CO2-en fra Melkøya kan brukes som råvare i produksjon av fôr til både mennesker og dyr. Teknologien er allerede utprøvd ut ved ferrosilisiumproduksjonen i Finnfjordbotn
Patient cohorts of interest in resuscitation science - Aligning Cardiac Arrest Registry Outputs with Stakeholder Needs
Get PDFCardiac arrest registries can benchmark, enhance quality of care and provide data for research. Key stakeholders from Emergency Medical Communication Centre (EMCC), Emergency Medical Services (EMS), In-Hospital Care Providers (IHCP) and Recovery and Rehabilitation Providers (RRP) have different perspectives, and registry results and patient cohorts should be tailored to facilitate benchmarking, quality improvement projects and research in all sections of the chain of survival. In this paper, we describe different cohorts of interest, exemplified by data from the Norwegian Cardiac Arrest Registry (NorCAR)
Giant pit craters on the modern seafloor above magma-induced hydrothermal vent complexes of Scotia Sea, offshore Antarctica
Get PDFMassive injection of 13C depleted carbon to the ocean and atmosphere coincided with major environmental upheaval multiple times in the geological record. For several events, the source of carbon has been attributed to explosive venting of gas produced when magmatic sills intruded organic-rich sediment. The concept mostly derives from studies of a few ancient sedimentary basins with numerous hydrothermal vent complexes (HTVCs) where craters appear to have formed across large areas of the seafloor at the same time, but good examples remain rare in strata younger than the Early Eocene. We present geophysical data documenting at least 150 large (km-scale) craters on the modern seafloor across ∼148,000 km2 of Scan Basin in the southern Scotia Sea, a remote region offshore Antarctica. Seismic and bathymetric information reveals the craters relate to vertical fluid pipes extending above dome-shaped forced folds and saucer-shaped igneous sills. Presumably, magmatic intrusions deform overlying sediment and produce thermogenic gas, where buoyant hydrothermal fluids migrate upwards from sill flanks through V-shaped gas chimneys to the seafloor. Fluid expulsion, driven by excess pore pressure, enhances vertical conduits and creates collapse structures on the seafloor. Age estimates for sill emplacement and crater formation come from correlations of seismic reflectors with bore hole data collected on IODP Expedition 382. Sills intruded into sediment at least two times, first about 12–13 Ma (Middle Miocene), which occurred with deep intrusions of stacked composite sills, and once about 0.9 Ma and associated with volcanism along Discovery Bank, which may have reactivated previous fluid venting. Crater reactivation has occurred since 0.9 Ma, although probably episodically. Importantly, at present-day, numerous craters related to sills and fluid pipes populate the seafloor above a young sedimentary basin, and the ocean and atmosphere are receiving massive quantities of 13C depleted carbon. The two phenomena are unrelated but, with changes in global climate and sedimentation, the craters could be filled simultaneously and give an impression in the rock record of rapid and coeval formation coincident with carbon emission. Interpretations of ancient HTVCs and their significance to global carbon cycling needs revision with consideration of modern seafloor regions with HTVCs, notably Scan Basin
An Arctic analogue for the future exploration of possible biosignatures on Enceladus
Get PDFMethane-rich emissions to the seafloor along the Arctic mid-oceanic ridge hold strong astrobiological significance, as they may represent analogues of putative hydrothermal vent environments on Enceladus. Although such environments on Enceladus would be ideal to sample in future astrobiological missions, this may not be possible due to technological and logistical limitations. As such, searching for biosignatures in the more readily sampled cryovolcanic plumes or Enceladus’ icy shell is preferable. In this regard, the Arctic Ocean, where the geologically active seafloor is covered by thousands of metres of salty water and sealed by an ice cap, is a unique terrestrial analogue of Enceladus. In the present study, we have sought to determine whether any geochemical biosignatures associated with methane cycling (e.g., elevated methane concentrations, carbon isotopic fractionation) can be detected in Arctic ice and seawater samples using mass spectrometric techniques similar to those likely to be included in the payloads of planned missions to Enceladus. Our results have shown that, although no unequivocal evidence of methane could be detected in our Arctic samples, the carbon isotopic composition of carbon dioxide gas and the oxygen isotopic composition of water vapour emitted from the Arctic samples could indeed be measured. Furthermore, an excess of molecular hydrogen with abundances comparable to the composition of Enceladus’ southern pole plume was possibly observed in one of the Arctic ice samples. These results have implications for detectable indirect geochemical evidence of putative ecosystems of hydrogenotrophic methanogenic life on the seafloor of Enceladus and justify future efforts at method development and refinement using apparatus similar to that likely to be included in the payloads of future missions
Tilrettelegging for friluftsliv
Get PDFDen rette linja mellom to punkter i landskapet er ikke alltid den raskeste. Det lønner seg ofte å gå i buer, for å unngå bratte skrenter, komme rundt et stup, eller bare en oppgått sti. Stier slynger seg mellom fjell og gjennom søkk og daler der det er lettest å ta seg frem. Enkelte steder er stiene bearbeidet, eller tilrettelagt som man gjerne kaller det; klopper over myrer, bruer over elver, trapper gjennom ei ur, eller et tau å holde seg i – altså noe som gjør det mulig eller lettere å passere. Tilrettelegging kan også bunne i en grunneiers ønske om å tjene penger på en utmarkskafé eller lignende, mens kommunene kan kreve inn avgift for å dekke inn kostnadene ved sin tilrettelegging – for eksempel en badeplass eller parkeringsplass. Noen ganger tilrettelegges det for å beskytte naturen, eller å styre trafikken, for eksempel gjennom å legge en sti utenom ei myr. Tilrettelegging kan innebære store endringer i terrenget som veier og steintrapper, eller moderne tekniske installasjoner. Ofte vekker dette debatt, og brukerkonflikter er ganske vanlig i tilknytning til det moderne friluftslivet. I dette kapitlet skal vi se nærmere på hvilke muligheter og utfordringer som ligger i tilrettelegging for friluftsliv og naturbasert turisme. I forskning omkring turisme og naturforvaltning er dette et tema, og særlig innen det som kalles besøksforvaltning (Miljødirektoratet, 2023).
For mange i Norge handler friluftslivet om aktiviteter i naturområder, og i hovedsak om fysiske aktiviteter. Som vi vil komme inn på seinere, er det et normativt element i hva som forstås som friluftsliv, også hos norske myndigheter. De opererer med friluftslivsdefinisjon hvor menneskelig miljøforandring og naturopplevelser er sentralt. I dagens moderne samfunn har vi mange former for aktiviteter i friluft som ikke vil falle innenfor en streng forståelse av begrepet eller hvor andre mål enn de nevnt over er viktigere, aktiviteter hvor formålet er trening, teste sine egne grenser og der utstyr og teknikk er sentralt for aktiviteten; langrenn i preparerte løyper, stisykling, stiløping, fjellklatring, randonné-skikjøring, kiting, rafting og så videre. Behovet for tilrettelegging er lavere i en klassisk eller puristisk forståelse av friluftslivet. Om man liker det eller ikke, tilrettelegging er et av de viktigste grepene for å få flere ut på tur og til å bruke naturen.
I de fleste land foregår vandring i naturen langs veier eller opparbeidede løyper. Også i Norge er dette vanlig, folk følger stier som over tid har vokst fram eller som folk selv har tilrettelagt. Grunnet et hevdvunnet og lovfestet prinsipp – allemannsretten – er de fleste naturområder i Norge tilgjengelige (se kapittel 6). Vi kan gå hvor vi vil, selv om det er på annen manns eiendom og vi har rett til å ferdes også utenfor stier så lenge ferdselen er hensynsfull og skjer uten å ødelegge for grunneieren eller er til sjenanse for andre. Den internasjonale litteraturen om tilrettelegging er begrenset eller i det minste litt annerledes – den handler mest om styring og ledelse av områder som myndighetene eier eller har råderett over. Heller ikke på norsk er tilrettelegging for friluftsliv mye omskrevet – det finnes intet omforent grunnleggende perspektiv eller teori for en slik øvelse.
Derfor tar dette kapitlet utgangspunkt i den norske offentlige debatten; hva vi mener med tilrettelegging, de faglige diskursene og kjente debattene, og gir en gjennomgang av systemet rundt tilrettelegging, landskapets tilpasning, tendensen til kommersialisering og de endringer dette betyr i forhold til de tidlige debattene i feltet. Kapitlet viser flere ganger til hvordan tilrettelegging skjer i Nordreisa kommune i Nord-Troms, der vi har gjort feltarbeider knyttet til et forskningsprosjekt (kalt Allemannsrettens omstridte natur, finansiert av Norges forskningsråd) (se Granås & Svensson, 2021, se også kapittel 9)