Valuation of wind energy projects: A real options approach

27 p.

Final report on the updating service on environmental chemicals in freshwater for the period 9.1.89 to 9.7.89

This report presents five batches of data which have been despatched to the Joint Research Centre, Ispra. The data as been allocated to various ECDIN (Environmental Chemicals Data and Information Network) files. The data comprises environmental chemicals in the freshwater environment, taking in paricular consideration: aquatic toxicity, bioaccumulation, metabolism and elimination biodegradation.

Hydrobiological service for observations and control of surface waters in the USSR

Technological progress, having reached in our time an unprecedented speed, is still increasing the rate of mineral extraction, industrial construction, and the mastering of new kinds of energy is growing. Correspondingly the anthropogenic load on the biosphere is increased and that requires the comprehensive development of monitoring the anthropogenic changes in the natural environment. Among problems resulting from the scientific-technological development, a noticeable place is given to the problem of pure water. Surface land waters proved to be a sensitive link in the natural environment. The hydrobiological service for observations and control of the surface waters is one of the subsystems of the State/Federal Service for Observations and Control of pollution levels in environmental objects, conducted by the USSR State Committee for Hydrometeor- ology and Control of the Natural Environment. This paper summarises the the main principles of the organisation and goals of the national system of monitoring of the state of the natural environment in the USSR.

Radio-aware service-level scheduling to minimize downlink traffic delay through Mobile Edge Computing

One of the most challenging problems in mobile broadband networks is how to assign the available radio resources among the different mobile users. Traditionally, research proposals are either speci c to some type of traffic or deal with computationally intensive algorithms aimed at optimizing the delivery of general purpose traffic. Consequently, commercial networks do not incorporate these mechanisms due to the limited hardware resources at the mobile edge. Emerging 5G architectures introduce cloud computing principles to add flexible computational resources to Radio Access Networks. This paper makes use of the Mobile Edge Computing concepts to introduce a new element, denoted as Mobile Edge Scheduler, aimed at minimizing the mean delay of general traffic flows in the LTE downlink. This element runs close to the eNodeB element and implements a novel flow-aware and channel-aware scheduling policy in order to accommodate the transmissions to the available channel quality of end users.

Análisis de dos economías de la Unión Europea: Alemania y España

CASTELLANO. Alemania, un país muy afectado tras el nazismo y las diferentes guerras en las cuales se vio involucrado, adoptó una Economía Social de Mercado (ESM) en 1948, que le permitió abrir sus puertas hacia la internacionalización, lo cual había estado fuertemente regulado hasta entonces. Esta apertura de fronteras ha favorecido al comercio exterior el cual está muy desarrollado. Además, una moderada inflación, un bajo nivel de deuda pública, alta cualificación de la población, el potente desarrollo industrial manufacturero y su capacidad de recuperación de la crisis económica que estalló en 2007, entre otros, hace de Alemania un país muy próspero. España, tras su recuperación de la época del franquismo la cual había castigado de forma severa a este país, se recuperó hasta niveles superiores a Alemania en cuestión de confianza empresarial. En cambio, en 2007, momento de estallido de crisis, la producción de varios sectores se vio muy reducida (principalmente el sector de la construcción), la tasa de desempleo aumentó de forma descontrolada… Actualmente, este país se encuentra en proceso de recuperación el cual se basa mucho en el turismo y por consiguiente en el sector servicios que año tras año ha ido evolucionando hasta convertirse en uno de los motores de esta economía.

Trabalho noturno em unidades fechadas: estudo com trabalhadores de enfermagem num hospital público

Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo geral avaliar as situações que envolvem o trabalho noturno em unidades fechadas, sob a percepção dos profissionais de enfermagem de um hospital público. Trata-se de um estudo descritivo com abordagem quantitativa, utilizando um questionário semiestruturado com perguntas fechadas. O instrumento abrange as condições de trabalho, as condições de saúde, o ambiente de trabalho, as relações com os colegas e com a chefia, a motivação e a percepção do profissional de enfermagem no que se refere à valorização profissional que a sociedade e os outros profissionais atribuem ao seu trabalho. Foi utilizada uma população amostral de noventa sujeitos distribuídos em quatro clínicas fechadas. Os dados foram analisados através do programa Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). Os resultados permitiram estabelecer uma relação desses dados com a atuação dos profissionais no que se refere à satisfação na execução dos procedimentos. Os trabalhadores de enfermagem do serviço noturno em unidades fechadas são representados, majoritariamente, por mulheres entre 41 e 50 anos de idade, casadas e com filhos sob sua guarda, 60% apresentam dois vínculos empregatícios com carga horária de trabalho superior a 60 horas semanais, encontram-se satisfeitas por atuarem em unidades fechadas e insatisfeitas com o serviço noturno, apresentando-se, portanto, estressadas e desmotivadas, com ganho de peso e índice elevado de afastamento por motivo de saúde. Os resultados apontam, ainda, que 90% dos participantes nunca receberam incentivos para a realização de cursos de atualização, 63,3% expressaram insatisfação com o dimensionamento de pessoal, o que se traduz em sobrecarga de atividades para os profissionais. Mais de 50% dos participantes da pesquisa sentem-se desvalorizados profissionalmente perante a sociedade e encontram-se insatisfeitos com os salários e benefícios oferecidos pela instituição. No que se refere à exposição a riscos, 86,6% dos profissionais se declararam insatisfeitos e muito insatisfeitos com os riscos ergonômicos. Já os riscos químicos, biológicos, psicossociais e mecânicos apresentaram 50% de índice de insatisfação, seguido pelos riscos físicos com 40%. Os dados desse estudo levam a concluir que existe uma grande complexidade de fatores, cuja interação interfere direta e indiretamente na qualidade do desempenho profissional de enfermagem e contribui para a falta de segurança e insatisfação no trabalho noturno.

Valuation of Wind Energy Projects: A Real Options Approach

We address the valuation of an operating wind farm and the finite-lived option to invest in it under different reward/support schemes: a constant feed-in tariff, a premium on top of the electricity market price (either a fixed premium or a variable subsidy such as a renewable obligation certificate or ROC), and a transitory subsidy, among others. Futures contracts on electricity with ever longer maturities enable market-based valuations to be undertaken. The model considers up to three sources of uncertainty: the electricity price, the level of wind generation, and the certificate (ROC) price where appropriate. When analytical solutions are lacking, we resort to a trinomial lattice combined with Monte Carlo simulation; we also use a two-dimensional binomial lattice when uncertainty in the ROC price is considered. Our data set refers to the UK. The numerical results show the impact of several factors involved in the decision to invest: the subsidy per MWh generated, the initial lump-sum subsidy, the maturity of the investment option, and electricity price volatility. Different combinations of variables can help bring forward investments in wind generation. One-off policies, e.g., a transitory initial subsidy, seem to have a stronger effect than a fixed premium per MWh produced.

RESTful Discovery and Eventing for Service Provisioning in Assisted Living Environments

Service provisioning in assisted living environments faces distinct challenges due to the heterogeneity of networks, access technology, and sensing/actuation devices in such an environment. Existing solutions, such as SOAP-based web services, can interconnect heterogeneous devices and services, and can be published, discovered and invoked dynamically. However, it is considered heavier than what is required in the smart environment-like context and hence suffers from performance degradation. Alternatively, REpresentational State Transfer (REST) has gained much attention from the community and is considered as a lighter and cleaner technology compared to the SOAP-based web services. Since it is simple to publish and use a RESTful web service, more and more service providers are moving toward REST-based solutions, which promote a resource-centric conceptualization as opposed to a service-centric conceptualization. Despite such benefits of REST, the dynamic discovery and eventing of RESTful services are yet considered a major hurdle to utilization of the full potential of REST-based approaches. In this paper, we address this issue, by providing a RESTful discovery and eventing specification and demonstrate it in an assisted living healthcare scenario. We envisage that through this approach, the service provisioning in ambient assisted living or other smart environment settings will be more efficient, timely, and less resource-intensive.