746 research outputs found
Why (and how) to regulate Power Exchanges in the EU market integration context?
No full textPower Exchanges (PXs) are key market institutions in open and market-based electricity industries. This paper aims at contributing to the ongoing debate on why and how to regulate Power Exchanges in the EU market integration context. . The paper starts by stating that two different types of PXs have to be distinguished, i.e. "Merchant" PXs and the "Cost of Service Regulated" PXs. The paper continues by comparing the typical incentives of these two types of PXs to perform the basic PX tasks in an isolated national market and in a market integration context. The paper concludes by deriving from this analytical frame the most relevant regulatory actions..Regulation, Exchanges, Grid access, Power Markets.
Mobilizing Cities towards a Low Carbon Future: Tambourines, Carrots and Sticks
No full textIn the transition towards a decarbonized energy system, we need city authorities to lead by example as public actors, to govern the actions of the private urban actors as local policy makers, and to conceive and manage the implementation of an integrated approach as coordinators, which we introduce in this paper as three levels of city smartness. Local governments however have institutional disincentives to act, and if they do act, they are confronted with urban actors that are reluctant to follow. This paper analyzes how city pioneers in Europe have been able to overcome these disincentives thanks to a combination of local circumstances and interventions by higher levels of government. We categorize the state of the art instruments that have been used by higher levels of government into “tambourines”, “carrots”, and “sticks”, and reflect on how the state of the art could be improved.cities; climate change; governance
How to "catch" floating populations? Fixing space and time while researching migration
No full textMeeus B. How to "catch" floating populations? Fixing space and time while researching migration. COMCAD Arbeitspapiere - working papers, 85. Bielefeld: COMCAD - Center on Migration, Citizenship and Development; 2010
Implicit Auctioning on the Kontek Cable: Third Time Lucky?
No full textCross-border capacities in Europe are currently inefficiently used. Implicit auctioning is about eliminating these cross-border trade inefficiencies by internalizing the arbitrage into the auction procedures of the Power Exchanges that are organizing trade nationally. On the Kontek Cable, implicit auctioning has been implemented without price coordination between the involved Power Exchanges. This implementation, referred to as “volume or dome coupling” as opposed to “price coupling”, has been argued to be institutionally easier to implement. The Kontek Cable experimented with three different implicit auctioning implementations whose performance we analyze empirically in this paper. We find that the third implementation is significantly outperforming the previous two implementations, but in this third implementation stakeholders partly abandoned the volume coupling approach they initially believed to be a viable alternative to price coupling.electricity, transmission, congestion management, market coupling
Constraining the structure of the transition disk HD 135344B (SAO 206462) by simultaneous modeling of multiwavelength gas and dust observations
No full textContext. Constraining the gas and dust disk structure of transition disks, particularly in the inner dust cavity, is a crucial step toward understanding the link between them and planet formation. HD 135344B is an accreting (pre-)transition disk that displays the CO 4.7 μm emission extending tens of AU inside its 30 AU dust cavity. Aims. We constrain HD 135344B's disk structure from multi-instrument gas and dust observations. Methods. We used the dust radiative transfer code MCFOST and the thermochemical code ProDiMo to derive the disk structure from the simultaneous modeling of the spectral energy distribution (SED), VLT/CRIRES CO P(10) 4.75 μm, Herschel/PACS [OI] 63 μm, Spitzer/IRS, and JCMT 12CO J = 3-2 spectra, VLTI/PIONIER H-band visibilities, and constraints from (sub-)mm continuum interferometry and near-IR imaging. Results. We found a disk model able to describe the current gas and dust observations simultaneously. Peer reviewe
A BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL APPROACH TO PHENOTYPE KNEE OSTEOARTHRITIS PATIENTS AWAITING TOTAL KNEE ARTHROPLASTY: A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY
No full textBackground: Osteoarthritis (OA) is accompanied by an excessive formation of underlying bone caused by homeostatic alterations. It has been described that in OA joints there is an up-regulation of the WNT/β-catenine pathway driving to the differentiation of Mesenchymal Stromal Cells (MSCs) into osteocytes [1]. Glyp-icans 1-6 act as co-receptors of WNT pathway, improving interactions between molecules [2]. On the other hand, NOTUM plays a role as a negative regulator of the pathway preventing WNT binding to its receptors and favouring the soluble form of Glypicans [3]. All these evidences lead us to think about the importance of Glypicans 1-6 and NOTUM in the osteogenic differentiation of MSCs in OA disease. Objectives: To determine the differences at gene and protein levels of Glypicans 1-6 and NOTUM in MSCs between OA patients and controls at baseline and during induced in vitro osteogenic differentiation. Methods: Bone Marrow Mesenchymal Stromal Cells (BM-MSCs) from both, 8 OA patients and 8 healthy donors were isolated from BM samples. BM samples were obtained by joint replacement and traumatic fractures. BM-MSCs were cultured during 21 days with normal culture medium and with osteogenic inducing medium. Cells and supernatant were recovered at 1, 7, 14 and 21 days. Protein levels were determined by ELISA in cells supernatant. Extraction and purification of RNA from cells and cDNA synthesis were performed. Glypicans 1-6 and NOTUM gene-expression was analysed by qPCR and normalized with housekeeping genes β-actin and RNA18S. The data were calculated with the method of fold change (2-ΔΔCt). Statical analysis were performed with GraphPad Prism 8.0. For the detection of outliers, the ROUT method (Q=1%) was used. Data were analyzed using t-test. Results: The mRNA levels of cells with normal culture medium were up-regulated in GPC6 (t=7d; p=0,016) in OA patients. During osteogenic differentiation, was observed a statistically significant up-regulation in levels of OA patients vs controls of GPC2 (t=14d; p=0,034), GPC4 (t=14d, p=0,025; t=21d, p=0,017), GPC5 (t=14d, p=0,007), GPC6 (t=14d, p=0,013) and NOTUM (t=14d, p=0,009) and down-regulation of GPC3 (t=7d, p=0,034). In addition, protein levels of NOTUM were lower compared to the control group in OA BM-MSCs (t=1d, p=0,049) and in the differentiation to osteocytes (t=1d, p=0,049; t=7d, p=0,043; t=14d, p=0,016). GPC3 levels were higher OA patients in all the times and in the two conditions (p However not used for this study., Mira Meeus: None declare
Power Exchange Auction Trading Platform Design (Ontwerp van een veilingsysteem voor elektrische energiebeurzen).
No full textDeze studie analyseert de door elektrische energiebeurzen georganiseerde veilingen in Europa. Beurzen zijn instituties die de groothandel in elektrische energie vergemakkelijken. De meeste beurzen organiseren aparte veilingen een dag voordat de levering plaatsvindt voor elk uur van de volgende dag. Generatoren, grootverbruikers, leveranciers en handelaars optimaliseren hun portfolios via deze handelsplatformen.Initieel organiseerden de meeste beurzen in Europa handel binnen nationale grenzen. In toenemende mate worden ze ook betrokken bij het organiseren van grensoverschrijdende handel. De veranderende context impliceert nieuwe uitdagingen maar hernieuwt ook de discussie over hoe vroegere uitdagingen werden aangepakt.Dit werk geeft inzicht in de problemen waarmee beurzen te kampen hebben. Het veilingsysteem is gemodelleerd als een optimalisatieprobleem met beperkingen en alternatieve oplossingen worden onderzocht. In zijn rol als veilingmeester, ontvangt de beurs door marktpartijen geïntroduceerde orders en beslist dan welke orders te aanvaarden en aan welke prijzen de contracten worden afgerekend. Het nemen van deze beslissing is niet vanzelfsprekend door netwerkbeperkingen, order formaten (blokorders) en politieke beperkingen. De tekst is onderverdeeld in drie delen die respectievelijk deze themas bespreken.
Modeling the Cost of Achieving a Renewable Energy Target: Does it Pay to Cooperate Across Borders?
No full textElectricity markets are increasingly integrated across borders, but transmission and renewable energy policies often remain local and uncoordinated. In this paper, we analyze how cooperative behavior in developing renewable energy technologies across borders and/or cross-border transmission capacity investment can reduce the cost of achieving a renewable energy target. We use a three step equilibrium model with: i) transmission investment, ii) generation investment and iii) electricity market that we apply to an interconnected two zone system. We find that it pays to cooperate if the zones have different renewable energy sources, but the success of a renewable energy cooperation also depends on cooperation in transmission development, which is therefore an important interaction to take into account in renewable energy policy discussions.renewable energy; transmission network; electricity market; modeling
Smart Cities Initiative: how to foster a quick transition towards local sustainable energy systems
No full textThe European Commission has recently launched the Smart Cities Initiative to demonstrate and disseminate how to foster a quick transition towards local sustainable energy systems. Within this initiative, the three main challenges faced by pioneering cities, are to reduce or modify the demand for energy services, to improve the uptake of energy efficient technologies and to improve the uptake of renewables in the urban environment. We find that enough resources will need to be provided to a significant number of pioneering cities, and propose that the initiative would allocate these resources through project competition, rewarding innovation, ambition and performance, which have been ingredients of success at Member State level.Smart Cities; sustainable local energy systems; city authority incentives; EU energy policy
Neighbourhood poverty, work commitment and unemployment in early adulthood: A longitudinal study into the moderating effect of personality
No full textWe studied how personality moderates the effect of neighbourhood disadvantage on work commitment and unemployment in early adulthood. Using a personality typolo-gy of resilients, overcontrollers, and undercontrollers, we hypothesised that the association between neighbourhood poverty and both work commitment and unemployment would be stronger for overcontrollers and undercontrollers than for resilients. We used longitudinal data (N=249) to test whether the length of exposure to neighbourhood poverty between age 16 and 21 predicts work commitment and unemployment at age 25. In line with our hypothesis, the findings showed that longer exposure is related to weaker work commitment among undercontrollers and overcontrollers and to higher unemployment among undercontrollers. Resilients’ work commitment and unemployment were not predicted by neighbourhood poverty.OTBArchitecture and The Built Environmen
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