The energy required to produce materials: constraints on energy-intensity improvements, parameters of demand.

In this paper, we review the energy requirements to make materials on a global scale by focusing on the five construction materials that dominate energy used in material production: steel, cement, paper, plastics and aluminium. We then estimate the possibility of reducing absolute material production energy by half, while doubling production from the present to 2050. The goal therefore is a 75 per cent reduction in energy intensity. Four technology-based strategies are investigated, regardless of cost: (i) widespread application of best available technology (BAT), (ii) BAT to cutting-edge technologies, (iii) aggressive recycling and finally, and (iv) significant improvements in recycling technologies. Taken together, these aggressive strategies could produce impressive gains, of the order of a 50-56 per cent reduction in energy intensity, but this is still short of our goal of a 75 per cent reduction. Ultimately, we face fundamental thermodynamic as well as practical constraints on our ability to improve the energy intensity of material production. A strategy to reduce demand by providing material services with less material (called 'material efficiency') is outlined as an approach to solving this dilemma.

Comparative analysis of carbonization drivers in China's megacities

This study investigates the key drivers affecting emission increases in terms of population growth, economic growth, industrial transformation, and energy use in six Chinese megacities: Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Chongqing, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong. The six cities represent the most-developed regions in China and they have similar per capita carbon dioxide (CO 2) emissions as many developed countries. There is an urgent need to quantify the magnitude of each factor in driving the emissions changes in those cities so that a potential bottom-up climate mitigation policy design at the city and sectoral levels can be initiated. We adopt index decomposition analysis and present the results in both additive and multiplicative approaches to reveal the absolute and relative levels of each factor in driving emission changes during 1985-2007. Among all cities, economic effect and energy intensity effect have always been the two dominant factors contributing to the changes in carbon emissions. This study reveals that there are large variations in the ways driving forces contribute to emission levels in different cities and industrial sectors. © 2012 by Yale University.

Correlations between the morphology and emission properties of trench defects in InGaN/GaN quantum wells

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with cathodoluminescence (CL) were performed on exactly the same defects in a blue-emitting InGaN/GaN multiple quantum well (QW) sample enabling the direct correlation of the morphology of an individual defect with its emission properties. The defects in question are observed in AFM and SEM as a trench partially or fully enclosing a region of the QW having altered emission properties. Their sub-surface structure has previously been shown to consist of a basal plane stacking fault (BSF) in the plane of the QW stack, and a stacking mismatch boundary (SMB) which opens up into a trench at the sample surface. In CL, the material enclosed by the trench may emit more or less intensely than the surrounding material, but always exhibits a redshift relative to the surrounding material. A strong correlation exists between the width of the trench and both the redshift and the intensity ratio, with the widest trenches surrounding regions which exhibit the brightest and most redshifted emission. Based on studies of the evolution of the trench width with the number of QWs from four additional MQW samples, we conclude that in order for a trench defect to emit intense, strongly redshifted light, the BSF must be formed in the early stages of the growth of the QW stack. The data suggest that the SMB may act as a non-radiative recombination center. © 2013 American Institute of Physics.

Pain relativity in motor control.

Motivational theories of pain highlight its role in people's choices of actions that avoid bodily damage. By contrast, little is known regarding how pain influences action implementation. To explore this less-understood area, we conducted a study in which participants had to rapidly point to a target area to win money while avoiding an overlapping penalty area that would cause pain in their contralateral hand. We found that pain intensity and target-penalty proximity repelled participants' movement away from pain and that motor execution was influenced not by absolute pain magnitudes but by relative pain differences. Our results indicate that the magnitude and probability of pain have a precise role in guiding motor control and that representations of pain that guide action are, at least in part, relative rather than absolute. Additionally, our study shows that the implicit monetary valuation of pain, like many explicit valuations (e.g., patients' use of rating scales in medical contexts), is unstable, a finding that has implications for pain treatment in clinical contexts.

Anchors, scales and the relative coding of value in the brain.

People are alarmingly susceptible to manipulations that change both their expectations and experience of the value of goods. Recent studies in behavioral economics suggest such variability reflects more than mere caprice. People commonly judge options and prices in relative terms, rather than absolutely, and display strong sensitivity to exemplar and price anchors. We propose that these findings elucidate important principles about reward processing in the brain. In particular, relative valuation may be a natural consequence of adaptive coding of neuronal firing to optimise sensitivity across large ranges of value. Furthermore, the initial apparent arbitrariness of value may reflect the brains' attempts to optimally integrate diverse sources of value-relevant information in the face of perceived uncertainty. Recent findings in neuroscience support both accounts, and implicate regions in the orbitofrontal cortex, striatum, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex in the construction of value.

Modulation of pain ratings by expectation and uncertainty: Behavioral characteristics and anticipatory neural correlates.

Expectations about the magnitude of impending pain exert a substantial effect on subsequent perception. However, the neural mechanisms that underlie the predictive processes that modulate pain are poorly understood. In a combined behavioral and high-density electrophysiological study we measured anticipatory neural responses to heat stimuli to determine how predictions of pain intensity, and certainty about those predictions, modulate brain activity and subjective pain ratings. Prior to receiving randomized laser heat stimuli at different intensities (low, medium or high) subjects (n=15) viewed cues that either accurately informed them of forthcoming intensity (certain expectation) or not (uncertain expectation). Pain ratings were biased towards prior expectations of either high or low intensity. Anticipatory neural responses increased with expectations of painful vs. non-painful heat intensity, suggesting the presence of neural responses that represent predicted heat stimulus intensity. These anticipatory responses also correlated with the amplitude of the Laser-Evoked Potential (LEP) response to painful stimuli when the intensity was predictable. Source analysis (LORETA) revealed that uncertainty about expected heat intensity involves an anticipatory cortical network commonly associated with attention (left dorsolateral prefrontal, posterior cingulate and bilateral inferior parietal cortices). Relative certainty, however, involves cortical areas previously associated with semantic and prospective memory (left inferior frontal and inferior temporal cortex, and right anterior prefrontal cortex). This suggests that biasing of pain reports and LEPs by expectation involves temporally precise activity in specific cortical networks.

Negative Effects of Relative Proximity and Absolute Geography on Open Innovation Practices in High-tech SMEs in the UK

© 2014 IEEE. This exploratory study addresses a gap in management literature by addressing the role of location in the continuously expanding field of open innovation research. In this context, we analyze potential negative effects of absolute geography and relative proximity on open innovation practices in high-tech small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the United Kingdom. Drawing upon cluster theory and business ecosystem literature, the analysis from three SME case studies in the East of England suggests that presumed 'favorable' location variables, such as close relative proximity between partners and the presence of economic clusters, can have certain negative effects on open innovation practices.