Effort sharing in ambitious,global climate change mitigation scenarios

The post-2012 climate policy framework needs a global commitment to deep greenhouse gas emission cuts. This paper analyzes reaching ambitious emission targets up to 2050, either ‐10%$‐10\%$ or ‐50%$‐50\%$ from 1990 levels, and how the economic burden from mitigation efforts could be equitably shared between countries. The scenarios indicate a large low-cost mitigation potential in electricity and industry, while reaching low emission levels in international transportation and agricultural emissions might prove difficult. The two effort sharing approaches, Triptych and Multistage, were compared in terms of equitability and coherence. Both approaches produced an equitable cost distribution between countries, with least developed countries having negative or low costs and more developed countries having higher costs. There is, however, no definitive solution on how the costs should be balanced equitably between countries. Triptych seems to be yet more coherent than other approaches, as it can better accommodate national circumstances. Last, challenges and possible hindrances to effective mitigation and equitable effort sharing are presented. The findings underline the significance of assumptions behind effort sharing on mitigation potentials and current emissions, the challenge of sharing the effort with uncertain future allowance prices and how inefficient markets might undermine the efficiency of a cap-and-trade system.     

Transfer of thin Si layers by cold and thermal ion cutting

We have used the crack-opening method to study the mechanical exfoliation behavior in hydrogen-implanted and bonded Cz Si. We found that the crystal orientation and boron doping influence the temperature required for mechanical layer transfer. Boron implantation at doses >10¹³ cm^–2 reduces the annealing temperature needed for mechanical exfoliation. The boron-doped epilayers followed similar exfoliation behavior as the boron-implanted samples. No lowering of the exfoliation temperature was observed for compensated and arsenic-doped Si layers. The hydrogen implantation converted the silicon wafer surface from p-type to n-type. The as-transferred Si layer was also found to be n-type after annealing at 200–450 °C. The p-type conductivity was restored upon annealing at around 600 °C. We believe that this conductivity conversion is due to the combined effect of ion-enhanced thermal donors and the presence of H-related shallow donors in the implanted layer. The p-type conductivity is restored at higher temperatures following the dissociation of the thermal donors and the out-diffusion of hydrogen. We also report that a good-quality silicon on glass layer can be obtained by the bonding and ion-cutting processes.     

MLP in layer-wise form with applications to weight decay

A simple and general calculus for the sensitivity analysis of a feedforward MLP network in a layer-wise form is presented. Based on the local optimality conditions, some consequences for the least-means-squares learning problem are stated and further discussed. Numerical experiments with formulation and comparison of different weight decay techniques are included.     

EEG and MEG brain-computer interface for tetraplegic patients.

We characterized features of magnetoencephalographic (MEG) and electroencephalographic (EEG) signals generated in the sensorimotor cortex of three tetraplegics attempting index finger movements. Single MEG and EEG trials were classified offline into two classes using two different classifiers, a batch trained classifier and a dynamic classifier. Classification accuracies obtained with dynamic classifier were better, at 75%, 89%, and 91% in different subjects, when features were in the 0.5-3.0-Hz frequency band. Classification accuracies of EEG and MEG did not differ.     

Residual stresses in HVOF-sprayed ceramic coatings

In this paper, the residual stress state of thermally sprayed ceramic coatings was examined by combining different experimental and analytical techniques, in order to provide a thorough characterisation of through-thickness stress profiles and a cross-verification of results. HVOF-sprayed ceramics, manufactured using commercial and nanostructured Al₂O₃ powders and commercial Cr₂O₃ powders, and atmospheric plasma-sprayed (APS) ceramics, manufactured using commercial Al₂O₃ and Cr₂O₃ powders, were investigated.The near-surface stress was measured by X-ray diffraction. The through-thickness profile and the intrinsic quenching stress were analytically computed by the Tsui-Clyne iterative model, using the X-ray measurement result as input, and results were validated by the substrate chemical removal method. Further verification was achieved by applying the in-situ curvature technique to the deposition of HVOF-sprayed Al₂O₃ coating.HVOF-sprayed Al₂O₃ coatings deposited using both conventional and nanostructured powders feature a similar, almost equibiaxial tensile stress on the top surface (116.5 MPa and 136.5 MPa, respectively) and a moderate through-thickness gradient (about 12 MPa and 20 MPa, respectively). Their intrinsic quenching stresses were analytically estimated to be 184 MPa and 205 MPa, respectively. APS Al₂O₃ possesses higher top surface stress (220 MPa) and quenching stress (311 MPa). However, it shows a less pronounced stress gradient (≈ 3 MPa) than HVOF-sprayed Al₂O₃-based coatings, because cracks, pores and weak lamella boundaries in the APS coating can accommodate the deformations induced by the bending moments arising both during coating deposition and during cooling.The model-derived quenching stress of the conventional HVOF Al₂O₃ coating was validated by the in-situ curvature measurement technique.Cr₂O₃-based coatings are significantly different. They display a lower residual stress in the near-surface region: 20 MPa in the APS coating, 27.5 MPa in the HVOF one. The HVOF coating also exhibits a very large stress gradient of ≈ 77 MPa. Machining and sliding processes (like polishing and dry sliding tribological testing) change their surface residual stresses to compressive ones.     

Compatibilization of polypropylene/poly(n-butylacrylate) blend: Functionalization of the poly(n-butylacrylate) phase by copolymerization

Compatibilization of a polypropylene (PP)/polybutylacrylate (PBuA) blend was studied, with the aim of achieving better adhesion at the interphase through modification of both the PP and PBuA phases. The compatibilization involved two separate stages: First, a small amount (2 and 5 mol %) of functional monomer copolymerizable with and soluble in BuA was added to the BuA initiator solution. Then, this solution was impregnated into PP pellets and polymerized inside the pellets by free-radical polymerization in a water suspension. The resulting blend was a thermoplastic elastomer consisting of PP as the matrix and functionalized PBuA as the partly crosslinked dispersed rubbery phase. The functionalities of the monomers were epoxy, oxazoline, hydroxyl, secondary amine, and carboxyl. In the second stage, two commercial graft copolymers of PP (PP grafted with either acrylic acid or maleic acid anhydride) were blended at the melt stage with the PP/functionalized PBuA blend. Here, the compatibilizing reactions took place between the functionalized components of the blend. The compatilization reactions were detected by FTIR analysis and by changes in mechanical or thermomechanical behavior of the blends. Morphology studies were carried out. As a result, the tensile strength, tensile modulus, elongation at break, and tear strength of the final product were improved by about 15, 20, 160, and 50%, respectively, compared with the unfunctionalized blend. The hardness of the material remained unchanged in the compatibilization. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Recent advances in Apertium,a free/open-source rule-based machine translation platform for low-resource languages

This paper presents an overview of Apertium, a free and open-source rule-based machine translation platform. Translation in Apertium happens through a pipeline of modular tools, and the platform continues to be improved as more language pairs are added. Several advances have been implemented since the last publication, including some new optional modules: a module that allows rules to process recursive structures at the structural transfer stage, a module that deals with contiguous and discontiguous multi-word expressions, and a module that resolves anaphora to aid translation. Also highlighted is the hybridisation of Apertium through statistical modules that augment the pipeline, and statistical methods that augment existing modules. This includes morphological disambiguation, weighted structural transfer, and lexical selection modules that learn from limited data. The paper also discusses how a platform like Apertium can be a critical part of access to language technology for so-called low-resource languages, which might be ignored or deemed unapproachable by popular corpus-based translation technologies. Finally, the paper presents some of the released and unreleased language pairs, concluding with a brief look at some supplementary Apertium tools that prove valuable to users as well as language developers. All Apertium-related code, including language data, is free/open-source and available at https://github.com/apertium.

     

Impacts of changing the minimum diameter of roundwood on the accumulation of logging residue in first thinnings of Scots pine and Norway spruce

The aim of this study was to examine the impacts of different minimum top diameters of roundwood on the accumulation of logging residue in first thinnings of Scots pine and Norway spruce. The aim was also to compare estimates of residue accumulation calculated by tree-specific models with field measurements from thinnings. Felling experiments were performed in young pine and spruce stands to evaluate the model calculations. The felling was performed by a harvester with a single-grip harvester head. Sample trees were felled and processed to a minimum diameter of 12, 10, 8 and 6 cm and the delimbed branches and stem wood between these cutting points were weighed. The mean relative masses of the tree tops of spruce were nearly doubled with each increment of 2 cm in the top diameter. Respectively in pine, the mean relative tree top mass was increased by 50-60% when the top diameter was increased by 2 cm. The mass of total residue (tree top and all delimbed branches) was similarly increased, but the differences were not as large. Compared to pine, smaller variation in the crown mass of the spruce sample resulted in a more accurate model prediction of the mass of tree tops and total residue. The results of this study suggest that the biomass quantity and distribution of a small amount of trees cannot be predicted very reliably, but when these results are generalized to stand-level, the model predictions can be improved to a practicable level.