The EU internal electricity market: Done forever?

Taking a quarter-century to build Europe's internal market for electricity may seem an incredibly long journey. The aim of achieving a European-wide market might be reached, but we went through – and should continue to go through – a process subject to many adverse dynamics. The EU internal market may derail greatly in the coming years from the effects of a massive push for renewables, as well as a growing decentralization of the production–consumption loop. Moreover, a serious concern is the risk of a definitive fragmentation of the European electricity market due to uncoordinated national moves with respect to renewable support and capacity mechanisms.     

What developing countries' past energy policies can tell us about energy issues today? Lessons from the expropriation of American Foreign and Power in Brazil (1959–1965)

This paper supports those who believe that history can provide invaluable insights for understanding recent shortcomings in the energy sector. Focussing on the political economy of Brazil's past energy policy, the paper analyzes how foreign companies, federal government, and international interests have shaped outcomes in the sector. For this, the expropriation of Amforp's in the Brazilian electric sector shows that what could be settled by a juridical agreement between the company and the government became an US–Brazilian diplomatic issue. The paper analyses these diplomatic agreements, showing how it changed the role played by the Brazilian state in the electric power sector.     

The EU internal electricity market: Done forever?

Taking a quarter-century to build Europe's internal market for electricity may seem an incredibly long journey. The aim of achieving a Europe-wide market might be reached, but it has involved – and continues to involve – a process subject to many adverse dynamics. The EU internal market may derail greatly in the coming years from the effects of a massive push for renewables, as well as a growing decentralization of the production-consumption loop. Moreover, a serious concern is the risk of a definitive fragmentation of the European electricity market due to uncoordinated national policy initiatives with respect to, for example, renewable support and capacity payments.     

承诺缺失下的城市水业特许经营的博弈分析

通过博弈分析，同时对我国城市水业市场化改革案例进行实证分析，认为固定回报率是当前制度环境下，地方政府和企业博弈均衡的结果。地方政府承诺的缺失是影响城市水业系统运作效率的主要原因，因此实现城市水业特许经营的制度化是解决效率问题的根本途径。     

三边形压实轮运动与能量分析

采用多项式方程描述三边形压实轮的外廓曲线,对压实轮的运动轨迹进行了分析,得到了压实轮重心坐标的变化规律。根据运动分析得到三边形压实轮对地面的夯实能量分别由平动动能、转动动能和重力势能构成,分析结果可用于压实轮的结构设计与冲击能量评估。     

Input structure of the construction industry: a cross‐country analysis, 1968–90

During the past several decades, globalization has led to the integration of product markets. Rapid increases in cross‐border economic, social, technological and cultural exchange have become the key elements of knowledge diffusion and thus technology spillovers among countries. As a result, the debate as to whether absolute convergence occurs at the cross‐country level has increasingly attracted the attention of researchers. The aim of this study is to examine the changes in the input structure of the construction industry in nine developed countries between the late 1960s and 1990 and to evaluate whether convergence occurs at input industry level. The analysis of the technical coefficients for 35 industries reveals that, across countries and over time, not only the key inputs but also the new high and low input industries are similar. The estimation of variance factors on the other hand suggests that (1) during the sample period, the input structure of the industry is dominated by divergence rather than convergence; (2) among the input industries, services in particular tend for convergence; and (3) manufacturing inputs provide a mixed picture where only a few inputs show convergence and the remaining inputs show in general weak divergence.     

Extending construction linkage measures by the consideration of the impact of capital

Construction linkage is a well‐established research field. However, a significant limitation in previous linkage research is that the flow of capital goods is not addressed. Using the OECD input–output tables, this research first generates a new input–output model considering capital as an intermediate factor. Using the new model, the construction linkages are recalculated and investigated in order to evaluate further the role of construction in national economies. The findings verify that traditional construction linkages were extremely underestimated in previous research. Furthermore, the effect of capital on construction shows a declining trend over the examined period. After considering the effect of capital, most values and rankings of backward and forward linkages show a decreasing trend, which confirms the declining role of the construction sector with economic maturity.     

中国高层建筑现象解析

高层建筑是中国城市发展的突出现象,它对城市环境、生活方式的影响越来越受到人们的重视。文章通过图表化的方式剖析当代中国高层建筑的发展历程和现状,以此挖掘高层建筑与宏观经济政策、城市形态、行为学的关系。     

How organizational boundary choices impact capability development

Abstract

As construction-oriented public sector agencies have outsourced more and more of their construction-related activities, they have often suffered from an inability to provide appropriate oversight due to degraded capabilities. This had led to calls for these agencies to rebuild capabilities across different technical areas. A firm’s boundary choices—make, buy, ally and dual modes (make and buy simultaneously)—may impact the ability of a firm to maintain and even build new capabilities, and in this article, we seek to investigate the impact that boundary choices have upon rebuilding capabilities and the extent to which organizations may make sub-optimal choices economically to potentially create opportunities for learning and knowledge sharing. Using qualitative data from three project-based public sector organizations managing large construction projects, we observed that neither pure make nor buy decisions assisted significantly in capability building. Dual modes provided firms with some opportunities to build capabilities, but the most successful decisions seemed to occur in respect of using intermediate governance modes such as alliances. We also observed that the boundary choice was just one dimension of the capability building process and suggest organizations require a multi-pronged strategy to rebuild capabilities over time.     

Input–output analysis of the Chinese construction sector

The construction sector has played a key role in the Chinese economy, which has been experiencing a rapid growth for the past two decades. This development and growth are reviewed in a framework of input–output analysis. The national input–output table (IO table) was used to study the current input–output profile of the Chinese construction sector and the relationship between the construction sector and other sectors. The pull and push effect of the Chinese construction industry to the whole national economy has been estimated. It shows that the pull effect is much larger than the push effect. Furthermore, through the analysis of a series of four IO tables spanning over the last 10 years, it reveals that the pull and push effect of the Chinese construction industry are both getting larger and larger. This means the Chinese construction industry is becoming mature and is in great transition.     

Evaluation of maximum allowable capacity of distributed generations connected to a distribution grid by dual genetic algorithm

This paper proposes a dual genetic algorithm based approach to evaluate the maximum allowable capacity of distributed generations (DGs) connected to a distribution grid. The uncertainties in the existing deterministic approaches for evaluating the steady-state voltage deviation due to distributed generation are discussed as well. Nowadays, deterministic approaches are widely adopted by those who propose the interconnection of DGs. However, the existing deterministic approaches overlook some operation conditions that may give rise to an incorrect result and lead to a wrong decision in practical applications. In this paper, various factors affecting steady-state voltage deviation are discussed first. Then, a maximum allowable DG capacity evaluation approach based on the dual genetic algorithm is proposed. Finally, the uncertainties of the existing deterministic approaches are discussed. It is intended as reference for utility engineers processing DG interconnection applications.     

施工企业精细化成本管理实践—浙江省建工集团

精细化成本管理在制造业已经实践多年, 而且效果显著, 施工企业的成本精细化管理也提出多年, 但是实践过程中困难重重, 原因有很多, 但本研究小组仅从技术层面和实际操作层面逐步完善解决方案。本文主要针对于浙江省建工集团在实践过程中, 实际遇到的问题如何解决, 最终逐步实现精细化管理的解决方案进行阐述和技术交流, 涉及到针对不同项目结构情况和施工方案进行WBS分解; 全国各地不同的造价软件如何与精细化成本管理系统进行对接; 如何对于没有企业的定额的情况下进行统一核算等方面的具体问题及解决方案。     

浅谈悬浇梁合拢段劲性骨架的设计

某大桥主桥梁部为70-110-110-70m悬浇预应力混凝土变截面连续箱梁,边跨和中跨合拢,结构先后完成2次体系转换。文章重点介绍合拢段受力分析与劲性骨架设计。     

An input–output analysis of Thailand's construction sector

Three input–output (IO) tables compiled between 1995 and 2000 were used to examine the significance of the construction sector and its relationships with other sectors of the Thai economy. The pull and push effect of the Thai construction sector to the national economy indicated that the former is much larger than the latter. Additionally, the relatively high output multipliers and backward linkage indicators showed that the construction sector had the potential to trigger off production in many economic sectors linked to it. An aggregated sectoral analysis revealed the high dependence of construction on manufacturing followed by services. The findings also suggest that the trends of the profile of inputs and outputs are correlated to the economic conditions in Thailand at the time the IO tables were compiled. Finally, the results of employment analysis showed that although the share of construction sector in direct employment generation may not be very large, its economic importance lies in its direct and indirect contribution to employment through strong backward linkage effects. Consequently, when its backward linkages and output multiplier are considered together with the employment opportunities latent within it, then the construction sector could be a major contributor to the economic growth of Thailand.