Communicating probabilistic information from climate model ensembles—lessons from numerical weather prediction

Climate model ensembles are widely heralded for their potential to quantify uncertainties and generate probabilistic climate projections. However, such technical improvements to modeling science will do little to deliver on their ultimate promise of improving climate policymaking and adaptation unless the insights they generate can be effectively communicated to decision makers. While some of these communicative challenges are unique to climate ensembles, others are common to hydrometeorological modeling more generally, and to the tensions arising between the imperatives for saliency, robustness, and richness in risk communication. The paper reviews emerging approaches to visualizing and communicating climate ensembles and compares them to the more established and thoroughly evaluated communication methods used in the numerical weather prediction domains of day-to-day weather forecasting (in particular probabilities of precipitation), hurricane and flood warning, and seasonal forecasting. This comparative analysis informs recommendations on best practice for climate modelers, as well as prompting some further thoughts on key research challenges to improve the future communication of climate change uncertainties.

Urban integrated meteorological observations: practice and experience in Shanghai, China

Observations of atmospheric conditions and processes in citiesare fundamental to understanding the interactions between the urban surface and weather/climate, improving the performance of urban weather, air quality and climate models, and providing key information for city end-users (e.g. decision-makers, stakeholders, public). In this paper, Shanghai's urban integrated meteorological observation network (SUIMON) and some examples of intended applications are introduced. Its characteristics include being: multi- purpose (e.g. forecast, research, service), multi-function (high impact weather, city climate, special end-users), multi-scale (e.g. macro/meso-, urban-, neighborhood, street canyon), multi-variable (e.g. thermal, dynamic, chemical, bio-meteorological, ecological), and multi- platform (e.g. radar, wind profiler, ground-based, satellite based, in-situ observation/ sampling). Underlying SUIMON is a data management system to facilitate exchange of data and information. The overall aim of the network is to improve coordination strategies and instruments; to identify data gaps based on science and user driven requirements; and to intelligently combine observations from a variety of platforms by using a data assimilation system that is tuned to produce the best estimate of the current state of the urban atmosphere.

Health care rights and NHS rationing: turning theory into practice

How should we understand the nature of patients’ right in public health care systems? Are health care rights different to rights under a private contract for car insurance? This article distinguishes between public and private rights and the relevance of community interests and notions of social solidarity. It discusses the distinction between political and civil rights, and social and economic rights and the inherently political and redistributive nature of the latter. Nevertheless, social and economic rights certainly give rise to “rights” enforceable by the courts. In the UK (as in many other jurisdictions), the courts have favoured a “procedural” approach to the question, in which the courts closely scrutinise decisions and demand high standards of rationality from decision-makers. However, although this is the general rule, the article also discusses a number of exceptional cases where “substantive” remedies are available which guarantee patients access to the care they need.

Climate change and water in the UK: past changes and future prospects

Climate change is expected to modify rainfall, temperature and catchment hydrological responses across the world, and adapting to these water-related changes is a pressing challenge. This paper reviews the impact of anthropogenic climate change on water in the UK and looks at projections of future change. The natural variability of the UK climate makes change hard to detect; only historical increases in air temperature can be attributed to anthropogenic climate forcing, but over the last 50 years more winter rainfall has been falling in intense events. Future changes in rainfall and evapotranspiration could lead to changed flow regimes and impacts on water quality, aquatic ecosystems and water availability. Summer flows may decrease on average, but floods may become larger and more frequent. River and lake water quality may decline as a result of higher water temperatures, lower river flows and increased algal blooms in summer, and because of higher flows in the winter. In communicating this important work, researchers should pay particular attention to explaining confidence and uncertainty clearly. Much of the relevant research is either global or highly localized: decision-makers would benefit from more studies that address water and climate change at a spatial and temporal scale appropriate for the decisions they make

(How) Do research and administrative duties affect university professors’ teaching?

We analyze the interaction between university professors’ teaching quality and their research and administrative activities. Our sample is a high-quality individual panel data set from a medium size public Spanish university that allows us to avoid several types of biases frequently encountered in the literature. Although researchers teach roughly 20% more than non-researchers, their teaching quality is also 20% higher. Instructors with no research are 5 times more likely than the rest to be among the worst teachers. Over much of the relevant range, we find a nonlinear and positive relationship between research output and teaching quantity on teaching quality. Our conclusions may be useful for decision makers in universities and governments.

A case study and interview with Jill McDonald CEO and President of McDonald's Northern Europe Division

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how strategy is developed and implemented within a subsidiary of a global organization, the relationship between subsidiary and headquarters and the need for continuous change and adaption to remain relevant. Furthermore, this case study describes a successful process of invention and adoption. Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws on documentary evidence and a semistructured interview with Jill McDonald CEO and President of McDonald’s Northern Europe Division with responsibility for the UK, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway and the Republic of Ireland. Management research rarely captures the views of the top executive, yet the top executives have a broad picture and are key strategic decision makers. Findings – The case study and interview offers a unique insight into factors contributing to McDonald’s unprecedented success (it has paid an increased dividend for the past 37 years). It also sheds light on its successful internationalization strategy. Originality/value – The case study draws on published material and augments this with an in-depth interview with the Chief Executive. Very few case studies offer insight into the thinking of a Chief Executive managing a subsidiary of a global organization. Its value lies in the lessons that managers and students of management can draw on the approach adopted by a highly successful global organization.

The intrinsic value of agency: the case of Indonesia

This paper analyses the relationship between agency and Indonesian women’s well-being. The existing debate on empowerment mostly focuses on agency's instrumental value, how agency benefits development and household/women's welfare. We depart from this debate by considering the intrinsic value of agency for women using the Indonesia Family Life Survey. We measure agency based on the decisions women make within their households. We find the effects of agency are not unambiguously positive. Agency has intrinsic value, seen in its strong relationship to well-being in certain spheres, which is moderated by the 'burden of responsibility' that seems to be felt by decision-makers.

Greenhouse gas emissions from waste management—assessment of quantification methods

Of the many sources of urban greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, solid waste is the only one for which management decisions are undertaken primarily by municipal governments themselves and is hence often the largest component of cities’ corporate inventories. It is essential that decision-makers select an appropriate quantification methodology and have an appreciation of methodological strengths and shortcomings. This work compares four different waste emissions quantification methods, including Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 1996 guidelines, IPCC 2006 guidelines, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Waste Reduction Model (WARM), and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities- Partners for Climate Protection (FCM-PCP) quantification tool. Waste disposal data for the greater Toronto area (GTA) in 2005 are used for all methodologies; treatment options (including landfill, incineration, compost, and anaerobic digestion) are examined where available in methodologies. Landfill was shown to be the greatest source of GHG emissions, contributing more than three-quarters of total emissions associated with waste management. Results from the different landfill gas (LFG) quantification approaches ranged from an emissions source of 557 kt carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e) (FCM-PCP) to a carbon sink of −53 kt CO2e (EPA WARM). Similar values were obtained between IPCC approaches. The IPCC 2006 method was found to be more appropriate for inventorying applications because it uses a waste-in-place (WIP) approach, rather than a methane commitment (MC) approach, despite perceived onerous data requirements for WIP. MC approaches were found to be useful from a planning standpoint; however, uncertainty associated with their projections of future parameter values limits their applicability for GHG inventorying. MC and WIP methods provided similar results in this case study; however, this is case specific because of similarity in assumptions of present and future landfill parameters and quantities of annual waste deposited in recent years being relatively consistent.

For the public without the public

How is the notion of public interest operationalised in the regulatory practices of the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board (IPSASB)? A fundamental objective in setting international accounting standards for both the private and public sector is to serve the ‘public interest’. Who or what constitutes ‘public interest’ however remains a highly complex and controversial issue. Private sector financial reporting research posits that users (of financial information) are used as a proxy for the ‘public’ and users are further refined to current and potential investors - a small proportion of the public. The debates surrounding public interest are even more contentious in public sector financial reporting which deals with ‘public’ (tax payers’) money. In our study we use Bourdieu’s notion of semi-homogenous fields to show how autonomous and heteronomous pressures from the epistemic community of the accounting profession and political/government interests compete for the right to define the public interest and determine how (by what accounting solutions) this interest is best served. This is a theoretical study grounded in the analysis of empirical data from interviews with the board members of the IPSASB. The main contribution of the paper is to further our understanding of the perceptions of the main decision makers from the ‘inner regulatory circle’ with regards to the problematic construct of public interest. The main findings suggest a paternal and un-reflexive attitude of the board members leading to the conclusion that the public have no real voice in these matters.

Precipitation and floodiness

There are a number of factors that lead to non-linearity between precipitation anomalies and flood hazard; this non-linearity is a pertinent issue for applications that use a precipitation forecast as a proxy for imminent flood hazard. We assessed the degree of this non-linearity for the first time using a recently developed global-scale hydrological model driven by the ERA-Interim Land precipitation reanalysis (1980–2010). We introduced new indices to assess large-scale flood hazard, or floodiness, and quantified the link between monthly precipitation, river discharge and floodiness anomalies at the global and regional scales. The results show that monthly floodiness is not well correlated with precipitation, therefore demonstrating the value of hydrometeorological systems for providing floodiness forecasts for decision-makers. A method is described for forecasting floodiness using the Global Flood Awareness System, building a climatology of regional floodiness from which to forecast floodiness anomalies out to two weeks.

e-Leadership through strategic alignment: an empirical study of small and medium sized enterprises in the digital age

Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) play an important role in the European economy. A critical challenge faced by SME leaders, as a consequence of the continuing digital technology revolution, is how to optimally align business strategy with digital technology to fully leverage the potential offered by these technologies in pursuit of longevity and growth. There is a paucity of empirical research examining how e-leadership in SMEs drives successful alignment between business strategy and digital technology fostering longevity and growth. To address this gap, in this paper we develop an empirically derived e-leadership model. Initially we develop a theoretical model of e-leadership drawing on strategic alignment theory. This provides a theoretical foundation on how SMEs can harness digital technology in support of their business strategy enabling sustainable growth. An in-depth empirical study was undertaken interviewing 42 successful European SME leaders to validate, advance and substantiate our theoretically driven model. The outcome of the two stage process – inductive development of a theoretically driven e-leadership model and deductive advancement to develop a complete model through in-depth interviews with successful European SME leaders – is an e-leadership model with specific constructs fostering effective strategic alignment. The resulting diagnostic model enables SME decision makers to exercise effective e-leadership by creating productive alignment between business strategy and digital technology improving longevity and growth prospects.

Simple Question, Complex Answer : Pathways Towards a 50% Decrease in Building Energy Use

Addressing building energy use is a pressing issue for building sector decision makers across Europe. In Sweden, some regions have adopted a target of reducing energy use in buildings by 50% until 2050. However, building codes currently do not support as ambitious objectives as these, and novel approaches to addressing energy use in buildings from a regional perspective are called for. The purpose of this licentiate thesis was to provide a deeper understanding of most relevant issues with regard to energy use in buildings from a broad perspective and to suggest pathways towards reaching the long-term savings objective. Current trends in building sector structure and energy use point to detached houses constructed before 1981 playing a key role in the energy transition, especially in the rural areas of Sweden. In the Swedish county of Dalarna, which was used as a study area in this thesis, these houses account for almost 70% of the residential heating demand. Building energy simulations of eight sample houses from county show that there is considerable techno-economic potential for energy savings in these houses, but not quite enough to reach the 50% savings objective. Two case studies from rural Sweden show that savings well beyond 50% are achievable, both when access to capital and use of high technology are granted and when they are not. However, on a broader scale both direct and indirect rebound effects will have to be expected, which calls for more refined approaches to energy savings. Furthermore, research has shown that the techno-economic potential is in fact never realised, not even in the most well-designed intervention programmes, due to the inherent complexity of human behaviour with respect to energy use. This is not taken account of in neither current nor previous Swedish energy use legislation. Therefore an approach that considers the technical prerequisites, economic aspects and the perspective of the many home owners, based on Community-Based Social Marketing methodology, is suggested as a way forward towards reaching the energy savings target.

Policy instruments to improve energy efficiency in buildings

The newly adopted energy efficiency directive (2012/27/EU) highlights the importance of energy efficiency in reaching the Union’s 2020 targets. The directive commits member states to defining national energy efficiency targets (art. 3), achieving yearly energy savings of 1.5% of the annual energy sales through the energy efficiency obligation scheme (art. 7), and providing a long-term strategy for the building sector that aims at a 3% refurbishment rate for public buildings (art. 4+5). Buildings currently account for 40% of energy use in most countries, putting them among the largest end-use sectors. This report takes a closer look at the best practices for implementing increasing energy efficiency in different regions and countries in Europe. The final aim is to identify some policy tools to be suggested to the region of Dalarna (Dalarna having been chosen as the pilot county in Sweden) as a means of implementing energy efficiency in the building sector. The final objective is to give analysts and decision-makers a better analytical foundation to explore future policy development in the area of buildings to be proposed and tested at the regional level in Dalarna and later at the national level in Sweden.

Depicting the interplay between organisational tiers in the use of a national quality registry to develop quality of care in Sweden

BACKGROUND: With a pending need to identify potential means to improved quality of care, national quality registries (NQRs) are identified as a promising route. Yet, there is limited evidence with regards to what hinders and facilitates the NQR innovation, what signifies the contexts in which NQRs are applied and drive quality improvement. Supposedly, barriers and facilitators to NQR-driven quality improvement may be found in the healthcare context, in the politico-administrative context, as well as with an NQR itself. In this study, we investigated the potential variation with regards to if and how an NQR was applied by decision-makers and users in regions and clinical settings. The aim was to depict the interplay between the clinical and the politico-administrative tiers in the use of NQRs to develop quality of care, examining an established registry on stroke care as a case study. METHODS: We interviewed 44 individuals representing the clinical and the politico-administrative settings of 4 out of 21 regions strategically chosen for including stroke units representing a variety of outcomes in the NQR on stroke (Riksstroke) and a variety of settings. The transcribed interviews were analysed by applying The Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR). RESULTS: In two regions, decision-makers and/or administrators had initiated healthcare process projects for stroke, engaging the health professionals in the local stroke units who contributed with, for example, local data from Riksstroke. The Riksstroke data was used for identifying improvement issues, for setting goals, and asserting that the stroke units achieved an equivalent standard of care and a certain level of quality of stroke care. Meanwhile, one region had more recently initiated such a project and the fourth region had no similar collaboration across tiers. Apart from these projects, there was limited joint communication across tiers and none that included all individuals and functions engaged in quality improvement with regards to stroke care. CONCLUSIONS: If NQRs are to provide for quality improvement and learning opportunities, advances must be made in the links between the structures and processes across all organisational tiers, including decision-makers, administrators and health professionals engaged in a particular healthcare process.

Using Multi-Objective Optimization To Maximize Multiple Benefits For Sustainable Drainage Design

For many years, drainage design was mainly about providing sufficient network capacity. This traditional approach had been successful with the aid of computer software and technical guidance. However, the drainage design criteria had been evolving due to rapid population growth, urbanisation, climate change and increasing sustainability awareness. Sustainable drainage systems that bring benefits in addition to water management have been recommended as better alternatives to conventional pipes and storages. Although the concepts and good practice guidance had already been communicated to decision makers and public for years, network capacity still remains a key design focus in many circumstances while the additional benefits are generally considered secondary only. Yet, the picture is changing. The industry begins to realise that delivering multiple benefits should be given the top priority while the drainage service can be considered a secondary benefit instead. The shift in focus means the industry has to adapt to new design challenges. New guidance and computer software are needed to assist decision makers. For this purpose, we developed a new decision support system. The system consists of two main components – a multi-criteria evaluation framework for drainage systems and a multi-objective optimisation tool. Users can systematically quantify the performance, life-cycle costs and benefits of different drainage systems using the evaluation framework. The optimisation tool can assist users to determine combinations of design parameters such as the sizes, order and type of drainage components that maximise multiple benefits. In this paper, we will focus on the optimisation component of the decision support framework. The optimisation problem formation, parameters and general configuration will be discussed. We will also look at the sensitivity of individual variables and the benchmark results obtained using common multi-objective optimisation algorithms. The work described here is the output of an EngD project funded by EPSRC and XP Solutions.