1,720,954 research outputs found
Climate Interactive: The C-Roads Climate Policy Model
Get PDFIn 1992 the nations of the world created the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC) to negotiate binding agreements to address the risks of climate
change. Nearly every nation on Earth committed to limiting global greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions to prevent “dangerous anthropogenic interference in the climate system,” [superscript 1]
which is generally accepted to mean limiting the increase in mean global surface temperature to
2 degrees C above pre-industrial levels.[superscript 2] High hopes were dashed at the 2009 Copenhagen climateconference when face-to-face negotiations among heads of state collapsed. Instead, nations were encouraged to make voluntary pledges to reduce their emissions. Those pledges
currently fall significantly short of what is needed (UNEP, 2010) while GHG emissions have
risen to record levels despite the great recession that began in 2008
Coastal communities and climate change : a dynamic model of risk perception, storms, and adaptation
Get PDFThesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2009.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Cataloged from student submitted PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 303-311).Climate change impacts, including sea-level rise and changes in tropical storm frequency and intensity, will pose signicant challenges to city planners and coastal zone managers trying to make wise investment and protection decisions. Meanwhile, policymakers are working to mitigate impacts by regulating greenhouse gas emissions. To design effective policies, policymakers need more accurate information than is currently available to understand how coastal communities will be affected by climate change. My research aims to improve coastal impact and adaptation assessments, which inform climate and adaptation policies. I relax previous assumptions of probabilistic annual storm damage and rational economic expectations-variables in previous studies that are suspect, given the stochastic nature of storm events and the real-world behavior of people. I develop a dynamic stochastic adaptation model that includes explicit storm events and boundedly rational storm perception. I also include endogenous economic growth, population growth, public adaptation measures, and relative sea-level rise. The frequency and intensity of stochastic storm events can change a region's long- term economic growth pattern and introduce the possibility of community decline. Previous studies using likely annual storm damage are unable to show this result. Additionally, I consider three decision makers (coastal managers, infrastructure investors, and residents) who differ regarding their perception of storm risk. The decision makers' perception of risk varies depending on their rationality assumptions.(cont.) Boundedly rational investors and residents perceive storm risk to be higher immediately after a storm event, which can drive down investment, decrease economic 3 growth, and increase economic recovery time, proving that previous studies provide overly optimistic economic predictions. Rationality assumptions are shown to change economic growth and recovery time estimates. Including stochastic storms and variable rationality assumptions will improve adaptation research and, therefore, coastal adaptation and climate change policies.by Travis Read Franck.Ph.D
Quantifying the cost uncertainty of climate stabilization policies
Get PDFThesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, Technology and Policy Program; and, (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2005.Includes bibliographical references (p. 61-63).Climate change researchers are often asked to evaluate potential economic effects of climate stabilization policies. Policy costs are particularly important because policymakers use a cost/benefit framework to analyze policy options. Many different models have been developed to estimate economic costs and to inform cost/benefit decisions. This thesis examines what impact modelers' assumptions have on a model's results. Specifically, MIT's Emissions Prediction and Policy Analysis (EPPA) model is examined to understand how uncertainty in input parameters affect economic predictions of long-term climate stabilization policies. Eleven different categories of parameters were varied in a Monte Carlo simulation to understand their effect on two different climate stabilization policies. The Monte Carlo simulation results show that the structure of stabilization policy regulations has regional economic welfare effects. Carbon permits allocated by a tax-based emissions path favored energy importers with developed economies (e.g., the US and the EU). Countries with energy-intensive economies (e.g., China) will likely have negative welfare changes because of strict carbon policy constraints. Oil exporters (e.g., the Middle East) will also be negatively impacted because of terms of trade fluxes. These insights have implications for stabilization policy design. The uncertainty surrounding economic projections expose some countries to larger economic risks. Policies could be designed to share risks by implementing different permit allocation methods. Direct payments are another means to compensate countries disproportionately disadvantaged by a stabilization policy.by Travis Read Franck.S.M
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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