87 research outputs found
Consumers’ Attitudes towards Surcharges on Distributed Renewable Energy Generation and Energy Efficiency Programs
No full textabstract: Increasing penetration of energy efficiency programs and distributed renewable energy generation has imposed significant challenges for utilities to recoup their large upfront costs. There is a heated debate on what surcharges should be implemented to help the utilities recover their fixed costs; however, very few studies focus on consumers’ attitudes regarding this topic. This study surveys about 190 residential consumers throughout the United States in November 2015, investigating their preferences and attitudes towards extra demand charges and volumetric energy price increases. We apply probit models and regress consumers’ attitudes on selected socio-demographic and behavioral variables. The results indicate the homeowners are more likely to prefer demand charges when compared to renters. The demographic and behavioral factors impact consumers’ perception of bill savings from energy efficiency programs or solar panel installation and also influence how consumers perceive the fairness of utilities recovering revenue losses by increasing volumetric energy price. In this paper, we demonstrate there is preference heterogeneity among consumers and that policy makers should be aware of such preference heterogeneity and apply policy targeting based on the identified demographics and behavioral factors impacting consumer preferences.The final version of this article, as published in Sustainability, can be viewed online at: http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/8/147
Peer Effects and Voluntary Green Building Certification
No full textabstract: Empirical evidence is provided to show that peer effects have statistically significant and positive impacts on the diffusion of green building certificates. Application and approval records of green certificates by commercial buildings in NY and AZ are used. The challenge of self-selection is addressed by the usage of fixed effects and the challenge of reflection is addressed by the time lag delay between a building’s application and its approval. Empirical results show that an additional approved LEED certificate within a zip code will increase the probability of a commercial building in the same zip code to apply for a LEED certificate by 3–4 percentage points; an additional approved Energy Star certificate within a zip code will increase the probability of a commercial building in the same zip code to apply for an Energy Star certificate by 1–2 percentage points
Investigation of two early events in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis -MRNA oxidation and up-regulation of a novel protective factor MSUR1-
No full textParameter Identification, Simulation, Linearization and Validation of a Ship Propulsion System
No full textThis Thesis is written to obtain the Master of Science degree of Maritime Technology at Delft University of Technology. It describes a research regarding with the calibration(parameter identification), validation and linearization of a ship propulsion system model. In the meantime, the Thesis is also one sub-project under the research program "Potential of Hardware-In-the-Loop Simulation in the Towing Tank" held by Dr.Ir.A.Vrijdag. HIL (Hardware-In-the-Loop) Simulation is widely used in Engineering Technology Field, and has been proved to be a very effective, highly-efficient, economical and environmental friendly strategy in the test and development of engineering control systems. The model scale ship tests nowadays, on the other hand, need to be improved and HIL Simulation provides an innovative & creative way, therefore it is reasonable to start the program and explore more in this field
Fingerprinting the ship propulsion system: low hanging fruit or mission impossible?
No full textIn this paper the concept of ship propulsion system “fingerprinting” is explored as an alternative for data driven models that require extensive measured datasets collected over long periods of ship operation. As a first exploratory step a model of a ship in bollard pull conditions is linearised and its transfer functions are determined. Subsequently limited experimental data, involving sinusoidal excitation of the system input at a wide range of frequencies, is used to determine the system parameters. The resulting parameter estimates compare well against previously determined values. Although the developed ideas are far from ready to be used on full scale, the authors believe that the approach is promising enough to be developed further towards full scale application.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Ship Design, Production and Operation
Synthesis and characterization of main chain crystalline polyorganosiloxanes, 1993
No full textThe goal of this project is to determine whether main chain polyorganosiloxanes exhibt liquid crystalline properties analogues to side chain polysiloxanes and to investigate the relationship between structure and liquid crystallinity. Several main chain polyorganosiloxanes with p-phenylene, p,p'-biphenylene and bisphenolene as mesogenic group and siloxene as flexible spacer were synthesized and characterized. The structures were confirmed by [H, 13C and 29Si NMR. The new polyorganosiloxanes were characterized by DSC, TGA, GPC and Polarizing Optical Microscope. The crystallinity of main chain polyorganosiloxanes is discussed
Mathematical modeling of produce washing in an industrial-scale flume washer
No full textIn America, fresh fruits and vegetables play an important role in enhancing people’s health and wellbeing (FDA, 1998). However, the cross-contamination in a sanitizing chlorine washing system is considered as a potential area of risk, where the contaminated and non-contaminated produce are being washed together in the washer (Munther et al., 2015). Therefore, cross contamination of fresh produce during washing should be regarded as a critical risk factor that can lead to foodborne disease outbreaks. In addition, fresh produce and fruits are heavily handled but undergo minimal processing before consumption. Therefore, it is necessary to develop an efficient and effective process on produce washing.
In this study, two factors aimed to reduce the microbial load on the produce were considered, which were shear stress and free chlorine. Although many of chemical treatments have very high efficiency in reducing microbial population in wash water, most of the chemical forces have limitation when it comes to the removal of bacteria from produce surface (Gil et al., 2009). In the removal of pathogens from produce surface, shear stress serves as the mechanical force and chlorine serves as the chemical force. During the washing process, bacteria get detached from the produce surface and go into wash water. However, some of the bacteria in wash water might re-attach on to the produce surface. The aim of this study was to mathematically model the combined role of shear stress and free chlorine on microbial attachment and adhesion in an industrial scale flume washer.
COMSOL® Multiphysics was used to simulate the washing of spherical produce in an industrial-scale flume washer. The first step was to examine how the relative horizontal positioning of two spherical produce impacted their exposure to shear stress caused by the flow in flume washer. Two spheres, 1.2 inches in diameter, were placed one behind another in a flume to represent spherical produce. The distance between the two spheres was varied. The correlation between the surface shear stress and the distance between two spheres was investigated. The simulated shear stress values were used in a mathematical model that simulated bacteria adhesion. A set of ordinary differential equations (ODEs) that described the ligand-receptor binding of bacteria and produce surface was used to quantify the number of bacteria detached and attached on the produce surface as a function of time. The shear stress values from prior simulation and chlorine sanitizer concentration were introduced to the ODEs to investigate their impact on the detachment and attachment of bacteria in this industrial-scale flume washer.
This study also effectively simulated the transport of free chlorine in a flume washer when chlorine was injected at selected locations. A chlorine dynamics model was used to calculate the distribution of chlorine in a flume washer.
The results showed that there was no significant change in the shear stress experienced by the sphere upstream when the distance between the two spheres was changed. The downstream sphere experienced variable shear stress, with shear stress reaching steady maximum value of 275 mPa when distance between the two spheres was no less than four times as their diameter. The ODEs approximated the number of bacteria on produce surface and in wash water under different shear stress values. Low main-flow velocity with higher injection velocity gave more uniform distribution of free chlorine. The results of this study will provide guidelines for designing produce washing equipment and the flow conditions used in produce washing.M.S.Includes bibliographical reference
Anonymous Social Networks versus Peer Networks in Restaurant Choice
No full textabstract: I compare the effect of anonymous social network ratings (Yelp.com) and peer group recommendations on restaurant demand. I conduct a two-stage choice experiment in which restaurant visits in the first stage are informed by online social network reviews from Yelp.com, and visits in the second stage by peer network reviews. I find that anonymous reviewers have a stronger effect on restaurant preference than peers. I also compare the power of negative reviews with that of positive reviews. I found that negative reviews are more powerful compared to the positive reviews on restaurant preference. More generally, I find that in an environment of high attribute uncertainty, information gained from anonymous experts through social media is likely to be more influential than information obtained from peers.Dissertation/ThesisM.S. Agribusiness 201
Blood Plasma-Based Glycan Nodes as Lung Cancer Markers and the Problem of Biospecimen Integrity in a Multi-Site Clinical Study
No full textabstract: Cancer is a major public health challenge and the second leading cause of death in the United States. Large amount of effort has been made to achieve sensitive and specific detection of cancer, and to predict the course of cancer. Glycans are promising avenues toward the diagnosis and prognosis of cancer, because aberrant glycosylation is a prevalent hallmark of diverse types of cancer. A bottom-up “glycan node analysis” approach was employed as a useful tool, which captures most essential glycan features from blood plasma or serum (P/S) specimens and quantifies them as single analytical signals, to a lung cancer set from the Women Epidemiology Lung Cancer (WELCA) study. In addition, developments were performed to simplify a relatively cumbersome step involved in sample preparation of glycan node analysis. Furthermore, as a biomarker discovery research, one crucial concern of the glycan node analysis is to ensure that the specimen integrity has not been compromised for the employed P/S samples. A simple P/S integrity quality assurance assay was applied to the same sample set from WELCA study, which also afford the opportunity to evaluate the effects of different collection sites on sample integrity in a multisite clinical trial.
Here, 208 samples from lung cancer patients and 207 age-matched controls enrolled in the WELCA study were analyzed by glycan node analysis. Glycan features, quantified as single analytical signals, including 2-linked mannose, α2‐6 sialylation, β1‐4 branching, β1‐6 branching, 4-linked GlcNAc, and outer-arm fucosylation, exhibited abilities to distinguish lung cancer cases from controls and predict survival in patients.
To circumvent the laborious preparation steps for permethylation of glycan node analysis, a spin column-free (SCF) glycan permethylation procedure was developed, applicable to both intact glycan analysis or glycan node analysis, with improved or comparable permethylation efficiency relative to some widely-used spin column-based procedures.
Biospecimen integrity of the same set of plasma samples from WELCA study was evaluated by a simple intact protein assay (ΔS-Cysteinylated-Albumin), which quantifies cumulative exposure of P/S to thawed conditions (-30 °C). Notable differences were observed between different groups of samples with various initial handling/storage conditions, as well as among the different collection sites.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Biochemistry 201
Profitability and Environmental Benefit of Providing Renewable Energy for Electric Vehicle Charging
No full textabstract: This study evaluates the potential profitability and environmental benefit available by providing renewable energy from solar- or wind-generated sources to electric vehicle drivers at public charging stations, also known as electric vehicle service equipment (EVSE), in the U.S. Past studies have shown above-average interest in renewable energy by drivers of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs), though no study has evaluated the profitability and environmental benefit of selling renewable energy to PEV drivers at public EVSE. Through an online survey of 203 U.S.-wide PEV owners and lessees, information was collected on (1) current PEV and EVSE usage, (2) potential willingness to pay (WTP) for upgrading their charge event to renewable energy, and (3) usage of public EVSE if renewable energy was offered. The choice experiment survey method was used to avoid bias known to occur when directly asking for WTP. Sixty percent of the participants purchased their PEVs due to environmental concerns. The survey results indicate a 506% increase in the usage of public pay-per-use EVSE if renewable energy was offered and a mean WTP to upgrade to renewable energy of 1.82 for Direct Current (DC) Fast Chargers (DCFC). Based on data from the 2013 second quarter (2Q) report of The EV Project, which uses the Blink public EVSE network, this usage translates directly to an annual gross income increase of 668% from the original 11.1 million. Blink would see an annual cost of 3.8 million in profits would be gained directly from the sale of renewable energy. Relative to a gasoline-powered internal combustion engine passenger vehicle, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are 42% less for the U.S. average blend grid electricity-powered electric vehicle and 99.997% less when wind energy is used. Powering all Blink network charge events with wind energy would reduce the annualized 2Q 2013 GHG emissions of 1,589 metric tons CO2 / yr to 125 kg CO2 / yr, which is the equivalent of removing 334 average U.S. gasoline passenger cars from the road. At the increased usage, 8,031 metric tons CO2 / yr would be prevented per year or the equivalent of the elimination of 1,691 average U.S. passenger cars. These economic and environmental benefits will increase as PEV ownership increases over time.Dissertation/ThesisMasters Thesis Technology 201
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