Site choices in recreational demand: a matter of utility maximization or regret minimization?

This paper compares the Random Regret Minimization and the Random Utility Maximization models for determining recreational choice. The Random Regret approach is based on the idea that, when choosing, individuals aim to minimize their regret – regret being defined as what one experiences when a non-chosen alternative in a choice set performs better than a chosen one in relation to one or more attributes. The Random Regret paradigm, recently developed in transport economics, presents a tractable, regret-based alternative to the dominant choice paradigm based on Random Utility. Using data from a travel cost study exploring factors that influence kayakers’ site-choice decisions in the Republic of Ireland, we estimate both the traditional Random Utility multinomial logit model (RU-MNL) and the Random Regret multinomial logit model (RR-MNL) to gain more insights into site choice decisions. We further explore whether choices are driven by a utility maximization or a regret minimization paradigm by running a binary logit model to examine the likelihood of the two decision choice paradigms using site visits and respondents characteristics as explanatory variables. In addition to being one of the first studies to apply the RR-MNL to an environmental good, this paper also represents the first application of the RR-MNL to compute the Logsum to test and strengthen conclusions on welfare impacts of potential alternative policy scenarios.

Evolution of Organisational Structure and Capabilities in Internationalising Banks: The CEE Operations of UniCredit's Vienna Office

Cross-border integration is the central management issue for banks that expand internationally, and this is especially true in Central and Eastern Europe, where the pace of internationalisation through mergers and acquisitions has been rapid. A critical challenge in cross-border integration is aligning a multinational company's formal organizational structure with the distribution of capabilities across its subsidiary units, and this issue is explored by tracking the co-evolution of organizational structure and capabilities during the internationalisation of a large banking network into this region. Our focus is the Vienna head office of Bank Austria Creditanstalt, which was acquired first by HypoVereinsbank (Germany) and then UniCredit (Italy). Despite its formal role being downgraded during these changes, the unit continued to develop its distinctive capabilities. The key insight our article offers is that managing cross-border integration is not simply about recognizing the value of the distinctive capabilities of individual units and designing formal structures that successfully align with them. It is also about understanding the need for dynamic interaction between formal corporate structure and individual units' desires to retain power and influence, which have significant implications for the development of their organizational capabilities.

Detection of Mixing Dynamics During Pumping of a Flooded Coal Mine

In complex hydrogeological environments the effective management of groundwater quality problems by pump-and-treat operations can be most confidently achieved if the mixing dynamics induced within the aquifer by pumping are well understood. The utility of isotopic environmental tracers (C-, H-, O-, S-stable isotopic analyses and age indicators—14C, 3H) for this purpose is illustrated by the analysis of a pumping test in an abstraction borehole drilled into flooded, abandoned coal mineworkings at Deerplay (Lancashire, UK). Interpretation of the isotope data was undertaken conjunctively with that of major ion hydrochemistry, and interpreted in the context of the particular hydraulic setting of flooded mineworkings to identify the sources and mixing of water qualities in the groundwater system. Initial pumping showed breakdown of initial water quality stratification in the borehole, and gave evidence for distinctive isotopic signatures (d34S(SO4) ~= -1.6‰, d18O(SO4) ~= +15‰) associated with primary oxidation of pyrite in the zone of water table fluctuation—the first time this phenomenon has been successfully characterized by these isotopes in a flooded mine system. The overall aim of the test pumping—to replace an uncontrolled outflow from a mine entrance in an inconvenient location with a pumped discharge on a site where treatment could be provided—was swiftly achieved. Environmental tracing data illustrated the benefits of pumping as little as possible to attain this aim, as higher rates of pumping induced in-mixing of poorer quality waters from more distant old workings, and/or renewed pyrite oxidation in the shallow subsurface.

2DRMP-G: Migrating a large-scale numerical mathematical application to a grid environment

We report on the migration of a traditional, single architecture application to a grid application using heterogeneous resources. We focus on the use of the UK e-Science Level 2 grid (UKL2G) which provides a heterogeneous collection of resources distributed within the UK. We discuss the solution architecture, the performance of our application, its future development as a grid-based application and comment on the lessons we have learned in using a grid infrastructure for large-scale numerical problems.

Utility in Willingness to Pay Space: A Tool to Address Confounding Random Scale Effects in Destination Choice to the Alps

We compare two approaches for estimating the distribution of consumers' willingness to pay (WTP) in discrete choice models. The usual procedure is to estimate the distribution of the utility coefficients and then derive the distribution of WTP, which is the ratio of coefficients. The alternative is to estimate the distribution of WTP directly. We apply both approaches to data on site choice in the Alps. We find that the alternative approach fits the data better, reduces the incidence of exceedingly large estimated WTP values, and provides the analyst with greater control in specifying and testing the distribution of WTP. © 2008 Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.

The Utility of Fractional Exhaled Nitric Oxide Suppression in the Identification of Nonadherence in Difficult Asthma

Rationale: Nonadherence to inhaled corticosteroid therapy (ICS) is a major contributor to poor control in difficult asthma, yet it is challenging to ascertain. Objectives: Identify a test for nonadherence using fractional exhaled nitric oxide (FENO) suppression after directly observed inhaled corticosteroid (DOICS) treatment. Methods: Difficult asthma patients with an elevated FENO (>45 ppb) were recruited as adherent (ICS prescription filling >80%) or nonadherent (filling <50%). They received 7 days of DOICS (budesonide 1,600 µg) and a test for nonadherence based on changes in FENO was developed. Using this test, clinic patients were prospectively classified as adherent or nonadherent and this was then validated against prescription filling records, prednisolone assay, and concordance interview. Measurements and Main Results: After 7 days of DOICS nonadherent (n = 9) compared with adherent subjects (n = 13) had a greater reduction in FENO to 47 ± 21% versus 79 ± 26% of baseline measurement (P = 0.003), which was also evident after 5 days (P = 0.02) and a FENO test for nonadherence (area under the curve = 0.86; 95% confidence interval, 0.68-1.00) was defined. Prospective validation in 40 subjects found the test identified 13 as nonadherent; eight confirmed nonadherence during interview (three of whom had excellent prescription filling but did not take medication), five denied nonadherence, two had poor inhaler technique (unintentional nonadherence), and one also denied nonadherence to prednisolone despite nonadherent blood level. Twenty-seven participants were adherent on testing, which was confirmed in 21. Five admitted poor ICS adherence but of these, four were adherent with oral steroids and one with omalizumab. Conclusions: FENO suppression after DOICS provides an objective test to distinguish adherent from nonadherent patients with difficult asthma. Clinical trial registered with www.clinicaltrials.gov (NCT 01219036). Copyright © 2012 by the American Thoracic Society.

Analysis of Two-Speed Wind Farm Operation From Grid-Side Measurements

This paper analyzes data captured by a phasor measurement unit at a wind farm, employing two-speed induction generators, and investigates aspects of the control system's interaction with the power system. Composite superimposed transient events are proposed as a method to improve the quality of the analysis and reduce errors caused by unknowns, such as wind speed variation. A Mathworks SimPowerSystems model validates the inertia contribution of the wind farm, which is an important parameter in power systems with high wind penetration. Transients caused by turbine speed transitions are identified and explained. The analysis also highlights areas where wind farm control should be improved if useful inertia contribution is to be provided.

Production and evaluation of the utility of novel phage display-derived peptide ligands to Salmonella spp. for magnetic separation

Aims: The objectives of this study were to produce Salmonella-specific peptide ligands by phage display biopanning and evaluate their use for magnetic separation (MS).
Methods and Results: Four phage display biopanning rounds were performed and the peptides expressed by the two most Salmonella-specific (on the basis of phage binding ELISA results) phage clones, MSal020401 and MSal020417, were chemically synthesized and coupled to MyOne™ tosylactivated Dynabeads®. Peptide capture capability for whole Salmonella cells from non-enriched broth cultures was quantified by MS + plate counts and MS + Greenlight™ detection, and compared to capture capability of anti-Salmonella (antibody-coated) Dynabeads®. MS + Greenlight™ gave a more comprehensive picture of capture capability than MS + plate counts and showed that Peptide MSal020417-coated beads exhibited at least similar, if not better, capture capability to anti-Salmonella Dynabeads® (mean capture values of 36.0 ± 18.2 % and 31.2 ± 20.1 %, respectively, over Salmonella spp. concentration range 3 x 101 - 3 x 106 cfu ml-1) with minimal cross-reactivity (= 1.9 %) to three other foodborne bacteria.
Conclusions: One of the phage display-derived peptide ligands was demonstrated by MS + Greenlight™ to be a viable antibody-alternative for MS of Salmonella spp.
Significance and Impact of Study: This study demonstrates an antibody-free approach to Salmonella detection and opens substantial possibilities for more rapid tests for this bacterium.

Behavioural skeletons in GCM: autonomic management of grid components

Autonomic management can be used to improve the QoS provided by parallel/distributed applications. We discuss behavioural skeletons introduced in earlier work: rather than relying on programmer ability to design “from scratch” efficient autonomic policies, we encapsulate general autonomic controller features into algorithmic skeletons. Then we leave to the programmer the duty of specifying the parameters needed to specialise the skeletons to the needs of the particular application at hand. This results in the programmer having the ability to fast prototype and tune distributed/parallel applications with non-trivial autonomic management capabilities. We discuss how behavioural skeletons have been implemented in the framework of GCM(the Grid ComponentModel developed within the CoreGRID NoE and currently being implemented within the GridCOMP STREP project). We present results evaluating the overhead introduced by autonomic management activities as well as the overall behaviour of the skeletons. We also present results achieved with a long running application subject to autonomic management and dynamically adapting to changing features of the target architecture.
Overall the results demonstrate both the feasibility of implementing autonomic control via behavioural skeletons and the effectiveness of our sample behavioural skeletons in managing the “functional replication” pattern(s).

Impacts of Electric Vehicle charging under electricity market operations

The Irish government set a target in 2008 that 10% of all vehicles in the transport fleet be powered by electricity by 2020. Similar electric vehicle targets have been introduced in other countries. In this study the effects of 213,561 electric vehicles on the operation of the single wholesale electricity market for the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland is investigated. A model of Ireland’s electricity market in 2020 is developed using the power systems market model called PLEXOS for power systems. The amount of CO2 emissions associated with charging the EVs and the impacts with respect to Ireland’s target for renewable energy in transport is also quantified. A single generation portfolio and two different charging scenarios, arising from a peak and off-peak charging profile are considered. Results from the study confirm that offpeak charging is more beneficial than peak charging and that charging EVs will contribute 1.45% energy supply to the 10% renewable energy in transport target. The net CO2 reductions are 147 and 210 kt CO2 respectively.