Financial risk management for energy service project under the Tokyo emission trading system

Recently, energy service providers (ESP) have increased due to deregulation in the power market. They install energy supply equipment at their own cost and supply the necessary energy to the client. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government started Asia’s first cap-and-trade program in April 2010. This program caps energy-related carbon dioxide emissions from some 1,330 offices and factories in Tokyo. Then, ESPs have to manage the many risks of energy service project directly linked to the profits. In this paper, we describes the risk analysis and investment optimization for energy service projects using financial engineering.     

Biomass and estimated production rates of metazoan zooplankton community in a tropical coral reef of Malaysia

Quantitative research on composition, biomass and production rates of zooplankton community is crucial to understand the trophic structure in coral reef pelagic ecosystems. In the present study, micro‐ (35–100 μm) and net‐ (>100 μm) metazooplankton were investigated in a fringing coral reef at Tioman Island of Malaysia. Sampling was done during the day and night in August and October 2004, and February and June 2005. The mean biomass of total metazooplankton (i.e. micro + net) was 3.42 ± 0.64 mg C·m^?3, ranging from 2.32 ± 0.75 mg C·m^?3 in October to 3.26 ± 1.77 mg C·m^?3 in August. The net‐zooplankton biomass exhibited a nocturnal increase from daytime at 131–264% due to the addition of both pelagic and reef‐associated zooplankton into the water column. The estimated daily production rates of the total metazooplankton community were on average 1.80 ± 0.57 mg C·m^?3·day^?1, but this increased to 2.51 ± 1.06 mg C·m^?3·day^?1 if house production of larvaceans was taken into account. Of the total production rate, the secondary and tertiary production rates were 2.20 ± 1.03 and 0.30 ± 0.06 mg C·m^?3·day^?1, respectively. We estimated the food requirements of zooplankton in order to examine the trophic structure of the pelagic ecosystem. The secondary production may not be satisfied by phytoplankton alone in the study area and the shortfall may be supplied by other organic sources such as detritus.     

重庆荣昌诱发地震区精细速度结构及2010年M_L5.1地震序列精确定位

根据重庆市地震台网和流动地震台网记录到的天然地震资料,利用接收函数反演得到荣昌地区的精细一维速度结构。在此基础上用双差定位法对2010年9月10日重庆荣昌M_L5.1地震序列进行了精定位。结果表明,地震定位精度得到极大提高,震中分布与区域地质构造的关系更加清晰。多数地震集中在主要断层附近并呈条带状分布,震源深度集中在2km附近,与主要储藏层及注水井深度吻合,初步认为该地震序列为注水活动所诱发的构造地震活动。文中获得的精准的速度结构及地震空间分布对于进一步深入研究震区深部地质构造特征、注水诱发地震的机理等具有重要意义。     

Tasks and problems involved in the handling of disaster waste upon April 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake,Japan

The potential impacts of tsunamis along the Catalan Coast (NW Mediterranean) are analysed using numerical modelling. The region is characterized by moderate to low seismic activity and by moderate- to low-magnitude earthquakes. However, the occurrence of historical strong earthquakes and the location of several active offshore faults in front of the coast suggest that the possibility of an earthquake-triggered tsunami is not negligible although of low probability. Up to five faults have been identified to generate tsunamis, being the highest associated possible seismic magnitudes of up to 7.6. Coastal flooding and port agitation are characterized using the Worst-case Credible Tsunami Scenario Analysis approach. The results show a multiple fault source contribution to tsunami hazard. The shelf dimensions and the existence of submerged canyons control the tsunami propagation. In wide shelves, waves travelling offshore may become trapped by refraction causing the wave energy to reach the coastline at some distance from the origin. The free surface water elevation increases at the head of the canyons due to the sharp depth gradients. The effects of potential tsunamis would be very harmful in low-lying coastal stretches, such as deltas, with a high population concentration, assets and infrastructures. The Ebro delta appears to be the most exposed coast, and about the 20% of the delta surface is prone to flooding due to its extremely low-lying nature. The activity at Barcelona port will be severely affected by inflow backflow current at the entrance of up to 2 m/s.     

Secondary instability and three-dimensionalization in a laboratory accelerating shear layer with varying density differences

We investigate the processes by which an accelerating stratified shear flow undergoes the transition to turbulence in a sequence of experiments in a tilted tank. We observe that the processes by which the flow undergoes breakdown are both complex and diverse, and suggest that the ratio, D, of the depth of the shear layer to the total tank depth and/or the (nondimensional) total density difference are important parameters in the determination of the dominant structures. In general, inherently three-dimensional, and relatively large-scale, flow structures strongly suppress simple subharmonic vortex pairing, and appear to dominate totally the transition to turbulence. In certain circumstances, the primary instabilities of the flow, namely Kelvin-Helmholtz billows, are able to develop in a quasi-two-dimensional manner before interaction between neighbouring billows becomes significant. In these circumstances, narrow secondary streamwise ‘tubes’ of vorticity are observed between neighbouring billows. Alternatively subharmonic, quasi-two-dimensional vortex mergings may be observed; these are not just simple pairings, but also three vortices are observed to merge into a single secondary billow, or two merge and the other persists, as predicted theoretically by Klaassen and Peltier (J. Fluid Mech., 202: 367–402, 1989). Three-dimensional vortex merging (knotting) of initially quasi-two-dimensional billows is also observed. Such knots are observed not only as pairwise transitions, as discussed by Thorpe (Geophys. Astrophys. Fluid Dyn., 34: 175–199, 1985), but also single billows are observed to knot with both adjacent neighbours simultaneously. Also, billows are observed to bow during merging events. However, particularly at larger density differences, higher Reynolds number and when the depth ratio, D, is sufficiently small, billow-billow interactions are apparent essentially immediately upon instability onset. Although the structures which develop resemble secondary tubes, these structures appear to be a primary instability of the flow, analogous to an instability observed by other researchers in both forced and unforced homogeneous shear layers.     

Seasonal Trend in the Occurrence of Nocturnal Drainage Flow on a Forested Slope Under a Tropical Monsoon Climate

Using data for one year, we examined the vertical wind speed profileson a mountain slope covered with forest in northern Thailand undera tropical monsoon climate. We defined two profile patterns: higherwind speeds at greater heights (Pattern 1) and lower wind speeds atgreater heights (Pattern 2). We classified 9.4% of the data as Pattern 2;this pattern tended to occur during the night, at low wind speeds, and with high outgoing longwave radiation. In addition, stable stratification anddecoupling between the canopy surface air and the overlying layers wereobserved when Pattern 2 occurred frequently. These facts suggested thatPattern 2 was caused by a nocturnal drainage flow. The occurrence ofPattern 2 showed a clear seasonal trend, indicating that there is a seasonaltrend in the occurrence of nocturnal drainage flows. Pattern 2 was observedmore frequently between August and February and less frequently betweenMarch and July. This corresponded to the seasonal trend in wind speed, butdid not correspond to the seasonal trend in the outgoing longwave radiation.     

Equivalent linear method considering frequency dependent characteristics of stiffness and damping

Equivalent linear dynamic response analysis of ground is based on complex moduli and Fourier series expansion; therefore, it is not an equivalent method but an approximate method. Two deficiencies in the conventional equivalent linear method represented by SHAKE are described first. The maximum shear strength is overestimated, resulting in overestimation of the peak acceleration under a strong ground motion, and the amplification is underestimated at high frequency. The latter sometimes results in underestimation of the peak acceleration under weak ground shaking, and gives an incident wave with unrealistic large accelerations or a divergence of analysis in deconvolution analysis under strong ground motion. Both deficiencies are shown to come from the same cause, i.e. computing the effective strain as a constant fraction of the maximum strain. Since this is a key concept of the equivalent linear analysis, one cannot overcome both deficiencies at the same time in the conventional method. An apparent frequency dependence in stiffness and damping is shown to appear in the dynamic response, although soil itself does not show frequency dependent characteristics. Following this observation, the effective strain is expressed in terms of frequency from the similarity concept of the strain–frequency relationship between time domain and frequency domain. This enables the reduction of both deficiencies at the same time, resulting in a marked improvement in the equivalent linear analysis. The accuracy of the proposed method is examined by the simulations of three vertical array records during large earthquakes. The proposed method always gives much better prediction than conventional equivalent linear methods for both convolution and deconvolution analyses, and it is confirmed to be applicable at more than 1% shear strain.