Influencing water consumption at South Staffordshire Water PLC : a disaggregated behavioural analysis of contributory factors

This research identifies factors which influence the consumption of potable water supplied to customers' property. A complete spectrum of the customer base is examined including household, commercial and industrial properties. The research considers information from around the world, particularly demand management and tariff related projects from North America. A device termed the Flow Moderator was developed and proven, with extensive trials, to conserve water at a rate equivalent to 40 litres/property/day whilst maintaining standards-of-service considerably in excess of Regulatory requirements. A detailed appraisal of the Moderator underlines the costs and benefits available to the industry through deliberate application of even mild demand management. More radically the concept of a charging policy utilising the Moderator is developed and appraised. Advantages include the lower costs of conventional fixed-price charging systems coupled with the conservation and equitability aspects associated with metering. Explanatory models were developed linking consumption to a range of variables demonstrated that households served by a communal water service-pipe (known in the UK as a shared supply) are subject to associated restrictions equivalent to -180 litres/property/day. The research confirmed that occupancy levels were a significant predictive element for household, commercial and industrial customers. The occurrence of on-property leakage was also demonstrated to be a significant factor recorded as an event which offers considerable scope for demand management in its own right.

Accommodating energy price volatility in life cycle cost analysis of asphalt pavements

Energy price is related to more than half of the total life cycle cost of asphalt pavements. Furthermore, the fluctuation related to price of energy has been much higher than the general inflation and interest rate. This makes the energy price inflation an important variable that should be addressed when performing life cycle cost (LCC) studies re- garding asphalt pavements. The present value of future costs is highly sensitive to the selected discount rate. Therefore, the choice of the discount rate is the most critical element in LCC analysis during the life time of a project. The objective of the paper is to present a discount rate for asphalt pavement projects as a function of interest rate, general inflation and energy price inflation. The discount rate is defined based on the portion of the energy related costs during the life time of the pavement. Consequently, it can reflect the financial risks related to the energy price in asphalt pavement projects. It is suggested that a discount rate sensitivity analysis for asphalt pavements in Sweden should range between –20 and 30%.

An analysis of the characteristics of small and medium enterprises that use intellectual property

This report documents the creation of a major new database that links IP activity to all UK firms. It then analyses the characteristics of IP active firms, with a specific focus on SMEs.

Market value, R&D and intellectual property:an empirical analysis of large Australian firms

This paper considers the value of innovation to large Australian firms. Specifically, we investigate how R&D and intellectual property activity influences the market value of firms, using a Tobin’s q approach. R&D data are available for the period 1994–96 and data on patent, trade mark and design applications for 1996. The findings suggest that R&D and patent activity are positively and significantly associated with market value. The results also suggest that private returns to R&D in Australia are low by international standards.

From marine ecology to crime analysis: improving the detection of serial sexual offences using a taxonomic similarity measure

Jaccard has been the choice similarity metric in ecology and forensic psychology for comparison of sites or offences, by species or behaviour. This paper applies a more powerful hierarchical measure - taxonomic similarity (s), recently developed in marine ecology - to the task of behaviourally linking serial crime. Forensic case linkage attempts to identify behaviourally similar offences committed by the same unknown perpetrator (called linked offences). s considers progressively higher-level taxa, such that two sites show some similarity even without shared species. We apply this index by analysing 55 specific offence behaviours classified hierarchically. The behaviours are taken from 16 sexual offences by seven juveniles where each offender committed two or more offences. We demonstrate that both Jaccard and s show linked offences to be significantly more similar than unlinked offences. With up to 20% of the specific behaviours removed in simulations, s is equally or more effective at distinguishing linked offences than where Jaccard uses a full data set. Moreover, s retains significant difference between linked and unlinked pairs, with up to 50% of the specific behaviours removed. As police decision-making often depends upon incomplete data, s has clear advantages and its application may extend to other crime types. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An empirical investigation of price competition and industry specialisation in NHS audit services

The NHS audit market is regulated by the Audit Commission (AC) and has unique features. We develop a model for audit fees that includes rigorous analysis of the type of auditor. Poor financial standing does not give rise to higher audit fees. Despite regulation the study supports the existence of a Big Five price premium on the audit fee, but only one firm has a premium. We found no premium due to industry specialisation. The removal of performance audit from AC regulation will require improved audit fee reporting and control.

An econometric analysis of international tourism demand in Hong Kong : a cointegration and error correction approach

The purpose of this study is to develop econometric models to better understand the economic factors affecting inbound tourist flows from each of six origin countries that contribute to Hong Kong’s international tourism demand. To this end, we test alternative cointegration and error correction approaches to examine the economic determinants of tourist flows to Hong Kong, and to produce accurate econometric forecasts of inbound tourism demand. Our empirical findings show that permanent income is the most significant determinant of tourism demand in all models. The variables of own price, weighted substitute prices, trade volume, the share price index (as an indicator of changes in wealth in origin countries), and a dummy variable representing the Beijing incident (1989) are also found to be important determinants for some origin countries. The average long-run income and own price elasticity was measured at 2.66 and – 1.02, respectively. It was hypothesised that permanent income is a better explanatory variable of long-haul tourism demand than current income. A novel approach (grid search process) has been used to empirically derive the weights to be attached to the lagged income variable for estimating permanent income. The results indicate that permanent income, estimated with empirically determined relatively small weighting factors, was capable of producing better results than the current income variable in explaining long-haul tourism demand. This finding suggests that the use of current income in previous empirical tourism demand studies may have produced inaccurate results. The share price index, as a measure of wealth, was also found to be significant in two models. Studies of tourism demand rarely include wealth as an explanatory forecasting long-haul tourism demand. However, finding a satisfactory proxy for wealth common to different countries is problematic. This study indicates with the ECM (Error Correction Models) based on the Engle-Granger (1987) approach produce more accurate forecasts than ECM based on Pesaran and Shin (1998) and Johansen (1988, 1991, 1995) approaches for all of the long-haul markets and Japan. Overall, ECM produce better forecasts than the OLS, ARIMA and NAÏVE models, indicating the superiority of the application of a cointegration approach for tourism demand forecasting. The results show that permanent income is the most important explanatory variable for tourism demand from all countries but there are substantial variations between countries with the long-run elasticity ranging between 1.1 for the U.S. and 5.3 for U.K. Price is the next most important variable with the long-run elasticities ranging between -0.8 for Japan and -1.3 for Germany and short-run elasticities ranging between – 0.14 for Germany and -0.7 for Taiwan. The fastest growing market is Mainland China. The findings have implications for policies and strategies on investment, marketing promotion and pricing.

Increased diversity of libraries from libraries: chemoinformatic analysis of bis-diazacyclic libraries

Combinatorial libraries continue to play a key role in drug discovery. To increase structural diversity, several experimental methods have been developed. However, limited efforts have been performed so far to quantify the diversity of the broadly used diversity-oriented synthetic (DOS) libraries. Herein we report a comprehensive characterization of 15 bis-diazacyclic combinatorial libraries obtained through libraries from libraries, which is a DOS approach. Using MACCS keys, radial and different pharmacophoric fingerprints as well as six molecular properties, it was demonstrated the increased structural and property diversity of the libraries from libraries over the individual libraries. Comparison of the libraries to existing drugs, NCI Diversity and the Molecular Libraries Small Molecule Repository revealed the structural uniqueness of the combinatorial libraries (mean similarity < 0.5 for any fingerprint representation). In particular, bis-cyclic thiourea libraries were the most structurally dissimilar to drugs retaining drug-like character in property space. This study represents the first comprehensive quantification of the diversity of libraries from libraries providing a solid quantitative approach to compare and contrast the diversity of DOS libraries with existing drugs or any other compound collection.

Statnote 30 : The one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA):fixed effects model

In Statnote 9, we described a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) ‘random effects’ model in which the objective was to estimate the degree of variation of a particular measurement and to compare different sources of variation in space and time. The illustrative scenario involved the role of computer keyboards in a University communal computer laboratory as a possible source of microbial contamination of the hands. The study estimated the aerobic colony count of ten selected keyboards with samples taken from two keys per keyboard determined at 9am and 5pm. This type of design is often referred to as a ‘nested’ or ‘hierarchical’ design and the ANOVA estimated the degree of variation: (1) between keyboards, (2) between keys within a keyboard, and (3) between sample times within a key. An alternative to this design is a 'fixed effects' model in which the objective is not to measure sources of variation per se but to estimate differences between specific groups or treatments, which are regarded as 'fixed' or discrete effects. This statnote describes two scenarios utilizing this type of analysis: (1) measuring the degree of bacterial contamination on 2p coins collected from three types of business property, viz., a butcher’s shop, a sandwich shop, and a newsagent and (2) the effectiveness of drugs in the treatment of a fungal eye infection.

Effects of pharmaceutical marketing:a re-analysis of the study of Windmeijer et al

Despite a growing body of scientific research, there is still much uncertainty about the effects of marketing expenditures on the demand for pharmaceuticals. Recently it was found that higher marketing expenditures for a brand may reduce the price elasticity of demand, and hence allow firms to charge higher prices (Windmeijer et al [1]). In this study we reconsider the study by Windmeijer et al. We find that their econometric models are based on an incorrect assumption of homogeneous parameters across brands. As a consequence, our conclusions concerning the effects of pharmaceutical marketing are different from theirs.

Techno-economic assessment and uncertainty analysis of thermochemical processes for second generation biofuels

Biomass-To-Liquid (BTL) is one of the most promising low carbon processes available to support the expanding transportation sector. This multi-step process produces hydrocarbon fuels from biomass, the so-called “second generation biofuels” that, unlike first generation biofuels, have the ability to make use of a wider range of biomass feedstock than just plant oils and sugar/starch components. A BTL process based on gasification has yet to be commercialized. This work focuses on the techno-economic feasibility of nine BTL plants. The scope was limited to hydrocarbon products as these can be readily incorporated and integrated into conventional markets and supply chains. The evaluated BTL systems were based on pressurised oxygen gasification of wood biomass or bio-oil and they were characterised by different fuel synthesis processes including: Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, the Methanol to Gasoline (MTG) process and the Topsoe Integrated Gasoline (TIGAS) synthesis. This was the first time that these three fuel synthesis technologies were compared in a single, consistent evaluation. The selected process concepts were modelled using the process simulation software IPSEpro to determine mass balances, energy balances and product distributions. For each BTL concept, a cost model was developed in MS Excel to estimate capital, operating and production costs. An uncertainty analysis based on the Monte Carlo statistical method, was also carried out to examine how the uncertainty in the input parameters of the cost model could affect the output (i.e. production cost) of the model. This was the first time that an uncertainty analysis was included in a published techno-economic assessment study of BTL systems. It was found that bio-oil gasification cannot currently compete with solid biomass gasification due to the lower efficiencies and higher costs associated with the additional thermal conversion step of fast pyrolysis. Fischer-Tropsch synthesis was the most promising fuel synthesis technology for commercial production of liquid hydrocarbon fuels since it achieved higher efficiencies and lower costs than TIGAS and MTG. None of the BTL systems were competitive with conventional fossil fuel plants. However, if government tax take was reduced by approximately 33% or a subsidy of £55/t dry biomass was available, transport biofuels could be competitive with conventional fuels. Large scale biofuel production may be possible in the long term through subsidies, fuels price rises and legislation.

Productivity change using growth accounting and frontier-based approaches:evidence from a Monte Carlo analysis

This study presents some quantitative evidence from a number of simulation experiments on the accuracy of the productivitygrowth estimates derived from growthaccounting (GA) and frontier-based methods (namely data envelopment analysis-, corrected ordinary least squares-, and stochastic frontier analysis-based malmquist indices) under various conditions. These include the presence of technical inefficiency, measurement error, misspecification of the production function (for the GA and parametric approaches) and increased input and price volatility from one period to the next. The study finds that the frontier-based methods usually outperform GA, but the overall performance varies by experiment. Parametric approaches generally perform best when there is no functional form misspecification, but their accuracy greatly diminishes otherwise. The results also show that the deterministic approaches perform adequately even under conditions of (modest) measurement error and when measurement error becomes larger, the accuracy of all approaches (including stochastic approaches) deteriorates rapidly, to the point that their estimates could be considered unreliable for policy purposes.

Stock repurchases and treasury share sales:do they stabilize price and enhance liquidity?

Can companies reduce the volatility and increase the liquidity of their stocks by trading them? In the context of the Italian stock market, where companies have far more leeway to sell as well as buy their own stocks than in the U.S., the answer is yes. We examine the effects of trading (open-market share repurchases and treasury shares sales) on liquidity (bid–ask spread) and volatility (return variance). Further, we examine the impact of shareholder approvals of repurchase programs on liquidity and volatility. We find clear evidence that trading increases liquidity and reduces volatility. These results are consistent with our analysis of the motives Italian companies give for making share repurchases.

Innovation, intellectual property and economic growth

What drives innovation? How does it contribute to the growth of firms, industries, and economies? And do intellectual property rights help or hurt innovation and growth? Uniquely combining microeconomics, macroeconomics, and theory with empirical analysis drawn from the United States and Europe, this book introduces graduate students and advanced undergraduates to the complex process of innovation. By addressing all the major dimensions of innovation in a single text, Christine Greenhalgh and Mark Rogers are able to show how outcomes at the microlevel feed through to the macro-outcomes that in turn determine personal incomes and job opportunities. In four sections, this textbook comprehensively addresses the nature of innovation and intellectual property, the microeconomics and macroeconomics of innovation, and economic policy at the firm and macroeconomic levels. Among the topics fully explored are the role of intellectual property in creating incentives to innovate; the social returns of innovation; the creation and destruction of jobs by innovation; whether more or fewer intellectual property rights would give firms better incentives to innovate; and the contentious issues surrounding international treaties on intellectual property.

A barrier and techno-economic analysis of small-scale bCHP (biomass combined heat and power) schemes in the UK

bCHP (Biomass combined heat and power) systems are highly efficient at smaller-scales when a significant proportion of the heat produced can be effectively utilised for hot water, space heating or industrial heating purposes. However, there are many barriers to project development and this has greatly inhibited deployment in the UK. Project viability is highly subjective to changes in policy, regulation, the finance market and the low cost fossil fuel incumbent. The paper reviews the barriers to small-scale bCHP project development in the UK along with a case study of a failed 1.5MWel bCHP scheme. The paper offers possible explanations for the project's failure and suggests adaptations to improve the project resilience. Analysis of the project's: capital structuring contract length and bankability; feedstock type and price uncertainty, and plant oversizing highlight the negative impact of the existing project barriers on project development. The research paper concludes with a discussion on the effects of these barriers on the case study project and this industry more generally. A greater understanding of the techno-economic effects of some barriers for small-scale bCHP schemes is demonstrated within this paper, along with some methods for improving the attractiveness and resilience of projects of this kind. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd.