Environmental Inequalities and Democratic Citizenship: Linking Normative Theory with Empirical Research

The aim of this paper is to link empirical findings concerning environmental inequalities with different normative yard-sticks for assessing whether these inequalities should be deemed unjust, or not. We argue that such an inquiry must necessarily take into account some caveats regarding both empirical research and normative theory. We suggest that empirical results must be contextualised by establishing geographies of risk. As a normative yard-stick we propose a moderately demanding social-egalitarian account of justice and democratic citizenship, which we take to be best suited to identify unjust as well as legitimate instances of socio-environmental inequality.

Empirical testing of genuine savings as an indicator of weak sustainability: a three-country analysis of long run trends

Genuine Savings has emerged as a widely used indicator of sustainable development. In this paper, we use long -term data stretching back to 1870 to undertake empirical tests of the relationship between Genuine Savings (GS) and future well-being for three countries: Britain, the USA and Germany. Our tests are based on an underlying theoretical relationship between GS and changes in the present value of future consumption. Based on both single country and panel results, we find evidence supporting the existence of javascript:void(0);a cointegrating (long run equilibrium) relationship between GS and future well-being, and fail to reject the basic theoretical result on the relationship between these two macroeconomic variables. This provides some support for the GS measure of weak sustainability.

Long-Term Economic Model for Allocation of FACTS Devices in Restructured Power System Integrated Wind Generation

This study proposes an approach to optimally allocate multiple types of flexible AC transmission system (FACTS) devices in market-based power systems with wind generation. The main objective is to maximise profit by minimising device investment cost, and the system's operating cost considering both normal conditions and possible contingencies. The proposed method accurately evaluates the long-term costs and benefits gained by FACTS devices (FDs) installation to solve a large-scale optimisation problem. The objective implies maximising social welfare as well as minimising compensations paid for generation re-scheduling and load shedding. Many technical operation constraints and uncertainties are included in problem formulation. The overall problem is solved using both particle swarm optimisations for attaining optimal FDs allocation as main problem and optimal power flow as sub-optimisation problem. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated on modified IEEE 14-bus test system and IEEE 118-bus test system.

Paving the way for the use of the SDQ in economic evaluations of school-based population health interventions: an empirical analysis of the external validity of SDQ mapping algorithms to the CHU9D in an educational setting

Purpose
The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is a behavioural screening tool for children. The SDQ is increasingly used as the primary outcome measure in population health interventions involving children, but it is not preference based; therefore, its role in allocative economic evaluation is limited. The Child Health Utility 9D (CHU9D) is a generic preference-based health-related quality of-life measure. This study investigates the applicability of the SDQ outcome measure for use in economic evaluations and examines its relationship with the CHU9D by testing previously published mapping algorithms. The aim of the paper is to explore the feasibility of using the SDQ within economic evaluations of school-based population health interventions.
Methods
Data were available from children participating in a cluster randomised controlled trial of the school-based roots of empathy programme in Northern Ireland. Utility was calculated using the original and alternative CHU9D tariffs along with two SDQ mapping algorithms. t tests were performed for pairwise differences in utility values from the preference-based tariffs and mapping algorithms.
Results
Mean (standard deviation) SDQ total difficulties and prosocial scores were 12 (3.2) and 8.3 (2.1). Utility values obtained from the original tariff, alternative tariff, and mapping algorithms using five and three SDQ subscales were 0.84 (0.11), 0.80 (0.13), 0.84 (0.05), and 0.83 (0.04), respectively. Each method for calculating utility produced statistically significantly different values except the original tariff and five SDQ subscale algorithm.
Conclusion
Initial evidence suggests the SDQ and CHU9D are related in some of their measurement properties. The mapping algorithm using five SDQ subscales was found to be optimal in predicting mean child health utility. Future research valuing changes in the SDQ scores would contribute to this research.

An empirical polarization domain channel availability model for cognitive radio

In dynamic spectrum access networks, cognitive radio terminals monitor their spectral environment in order to detect and opportunistically access unoccupied frequency channels. The overall performance of such networks depends on the spectrum occupancy or availability patterns. Accurate knowledge on the channel availability enables optimum performance of such networks in terms of spectrum and energy efficiency. This work proposes a novel probabilistic channel availability model that can describe the channel availability in different polarizations for mobile cognitive radio terminals that are likely to change their orientation during their operation. A Gaussian approximation is used to model the empirical occupancy data that was obtained through a measurement campaign in the cellular frequency bands within a realistic operational scenario.

Facts, Hacks and Turbines: Media Analysis of Irish Wind Energy

Wind energy projects face increasing opposition from host communities throughout the western world. Governments have responded in a range of ways, including enhanced local control over consenting (England), reform of planning regulations (Australia) or community ownership (Denmark). However, there is no effective mechanism for monitoring levels of social acceptance and thus, no means of evaluating the effectiveness of these approaches. There have been attempts to understand how social framing of wind energy in the media (e.g. Van de Velde et al 2010, Barry and Ellis, 2008, Hindmarsh 2014), highlighting how this changes over time. However, no research has focussed on Ireland and critically, none have examined whether this can help monitor overall levels of social acceptance. In order to explore this, this paper will present a media analysis of wind energy in the Republic of Ireland, which witnessed a rapid increase in wind energy capacity and has the highest energy penetration of wind in the world (19%). However, this has been accompanied by increasing public opposition and (assumed) declining levels of social acceptance.

This paper will describe the results of analysing over 8000 articles on wind energy that have appeared in three Irish newspapers. These are assessed through historical-diachronic (over time) and comparative –synchronic (differences between newspapers) analyses (Carvalho 2007) to highlight changing trends in framing wind energy and changing concerns over wind energy in Ireland. The paper will consider whether such media analysis could form a tool for monitoring the trends in social acceptance of wind energy.

Interactive management control via analytic hierarchy process (AHP). An empirical study in a public university hospital

Management control in public university hospitals is a challenging task because of continuous changes due to external pressures (e.g. economic pressures, stakeholder focuses and scientific progress) and internal complexities (top management turnover, shared leadership, technological evolution, and researcher oriented mission). Interactive budgeting contributed to improving vertical and horizontal communication between hospital and stakeholders and between different organizational levels. This paper describes an application of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to enhance interactive budgeting in one of the biggest public university hospital in Italy. AHP improved budget allocation facilitating elicitation and formalization of units' needs. Furthermore, AHP facilitated vertical communication among manager and stakeholders, as it allowed multilevel hierarchical representation of hospital needs, and horizontal communication among staff of the same hospital, as it allowed units' need prioritization and standardization, with a scientific multi-criteria approach, without using complex mathematics. Finally, AHP allowed traceability of a complex decision making processes (as budget allocation), this aspect being of paramount importance in public sectors, where managers are called to respond to many different stakeholders about their choices.

Replicability of data collected for empirical estimation of relative pollen productivity

The effects of repeated survey and fieldwork timing on data derived from a recently proposed standard field methodology for empirical estimation of Relative Pollen Productivity have been tested. Seasonal variations in vegetation and associated pollen assemblages were studied in three contrasting cultural habitat types; semi-natural ancient woodlands, lowland heaths, and unimproved, traditionally managed hay meadows. Results show that in woodlands and heathlands the standard method generates vegetation data with a reasonable degree of similarity throughout the field season, though in some instances additional recording of woodland canopy cover should be undertaken, and differences were greater for woodland understorey taxa than for arboreal taxa. Large differences in vegetation cover were observed over the field season in the grassland community, and matching the phenological timing of surveys within and between studies is clearly important if RPP estimates from these sites are to be comparable. Pollen assemblages from closely co-located moss polsters collected on different visits are shown to be variable in all communities, to a greater degree than can be explained by the sampling error associated with pollen counting, and further study of moss polsters as pollen traps is recommended.