The Effect of Key Parameters on the Strength of a Dispersive Soil Stabilized with Sustainable Binders

Geotechnical and Geological Engineering - Dispersive soils are susceptible to phenomena of internal and external erosion when in contact with relatively pure water due to its particle’s...     

Hydrologic models coupled with 2D hydrodynamic model for high-resolution urban flood simulation

Natural Hazards - Floods are the most frequent natural disaster and pose a very challenging threat to many cities worldwide. Understanding the flood dynamic is essential for developing strategies...     

Numerical characterization of slope rock mass through considerations of hydraulic and mechanical properties

Landslides - In this paper, the slope rock mass is numerically characterized by considering hydraulic and mechanical properties using two distinct element models. The flow rate and permeability are...     

Would different methodologies for assessing carbon leakage exposure lead to different risk levels? A case study of the Brazilian industry

Energy-intensive industries play an important role in low-carbon development, being particularly exposed to climate policies. Concern over possible carbon leakage in this sector poses a major challenge for designing effective carbon pricing instruments (CPI). Different methodologies for assessing carbon leakage exposure are currently used by different jurisdictions, each of them based on different approaches and indicators. This paper aims to analyse the extent to which the use of different methodologies leads to different results in terms of exposure to the risk of carbon leakage, using the Brazilian industry sector as a case study. Results indicate that carbon leakage exposure is an expected outcome of eventual CPI implementation in Brazilian industry. However, results vary according to the chosen methodology, so the definition of the criteria is paramount for assessing sectoral exposure to the risk of carbon leakage.

Key policy insights

• Despite increasing discussion about the implementation of carbon pricing on the Brazilian industrial sector, the evaluation of carbon leakage risks is still neglected.

• Assessments of the risk of carbon leakage are directly related to the indicators and criteria used by each methodology. Thus, a given subsector may present different levels of exposure to carbon leakage depending on the methodological choice.

• More than a purely technical discussion, the methodological definition of carbon leakage risk is a political discussion – it can be well-conducted, leading to the success of a CPI, or even sabotaged, by implicitly subsidizing energy-intensive industries.

     

Adjustment time of the first baroclinic Rossby wave in the global oceans

1Introduction Planetary waves involve the main processes bywhich perturbation signal in one part of the ocean istransferred to another part.In the1970s,mostof theprevious theoretical studies focus on the local Ekmanpumping and the nondispersive long baroc…     

Salinivibrio sp.YH4胞外丝氨酸蛋白酶EYHS耐盐性及生物信息学分析

摘要：目的 探讨菌株Salinivibrio sp.YH4分泌的丝氨酸蛋白酶EYHS的耐盐性及结构特征。方法 明胶底物酶谱法分析EYHS的耐盐性。应用生物信息学手段对EYHS及6种耐盐的S8家族丝氨酸蛋白酶结构特征进行分析。结果 EYHS在4 mol/L的NaCl溶液中仍具有活性,属于耐盐蛋白酶。EYHS及6种S8家族丝氨酸蛋白酶分子表面的loop区等无规则卷曲所占比例较高,α-螺旋与β-片层则主要位于酶分子内部。EYHS分子表面酸性氨基酸含量较高,且具有弱疏水内核。多序列比对发现蛋白酶的催化三联体两侧存在高度保守的基序和保守的极性氨基酸及芳香族氨基酸,并存在多个保守的Gly与Ala。同源模建和表面电荷分布显示,α螺旋和β片层围成了蛋白酶的催化腔,EYHS活性中心包含由Asp32、His65与Ser215组成的催化三联体,且催化位点区域表面静电势为负。结论 上述结构特征可能有助于耐盐丝氨酸蛋白酶EYHS在高盐环境下维持其稳定性和适度柔性,并有助于其催化功能的发挥,为深入研究耐盐丝氨酸蛋白酶的高盐环境适应性提供了一定的理论依据。     

Multiple Unmanned Underwater Vehicles Consensus Control with Unmeasurable Velocity Information and Environmental Disturbances Under Switching Directed Topologies

China Ocean Engineering - A consensus algorithm proposed in the paper is applied to tackle remarkable problems of unmeasurable velocities, the environmental disturbances, and the limited...     

基于功能视角的广州都市边缘区乡村发展类型分化及其动力机制

基于村庄规划详细调查数据库,采用空间集中度和功能识别等方法,深度剖析广州都市边缘区村域尺度乡村发展的类型分化及其动力机制.结果 表明:①广州都市边缘区村域乡村功能的空间梯度差异特征明显.乡村经济发展功能和社会保障功能呈现出由城区向城郊逐渐减弱的分异特征,农业生产功能和生态保育功能则由城区向城郊逐渐增强态势.以乡村主导功...     

Gentrification in Porto: floating city users and internationally-driven urban change

The heightening scale of urban tourism and the fast-growing number of “floating” city users raise new challenges to understand contemporary urban change – namely for internationally open, heritage-rich medium-sized cities. Discussing the case of Porto at a time when the contested notion of gentrification infuses local politics, we highlight the transnational drivers of this process in Portugal´s second city. While acknowledging perils and benefits, we argue that more than simply leaving a footprint to be solved with taxation, internationally-driven gentrification may endanger city diversity and identity, raising implications for urban policy and for our understanding of local development as a whole.     

Perceptions of Land Tenure Security in Rural China: The Impact of Land Reallocations and Certification

Abstract

Tenure security is commonly recognized as an important factor in stimulating long-term investments in land. Recent studies suggest that a distinction between legal, actual and perceived tenure security needs to be made in analyzing tenure security. This study discusses the relationships between legal, actual and perceived land tenure security in rural China, and empirically examines the impact of actual on perceived land tenure security by applying Probit models to household and village survey data collected in four provinces. Using household expectations about the absence of land reallocations within the next five years as the dependent variable, we find that tenure security is positively affected by the possession of land certificates in villages that periodically reallocated land but not in villages that did not do so. The estimated impact is larger for land certificates issued in the new round of land certification than for land certificates that were issued earlier.