The initial impact of EU ETS verification events on stock prices

This paper studies the impact of verified emissions publications in the European Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) on the market value of participating companies. Using event study methodology on a unique sample of 368 listed companies, we show that verified emissions only resulted in statistically significant market responses when the carbon price was high and allowance scarcity was anticipated. The cross-section analysis of abnormal returns surrounding the publication of verified emissions shows that share prices decrease when actual emissions relative to allocated emissions increase. This negative relationship between allocation shortfalls and firm value is only significant for firms that are either carbon-intensive, compared to sector peers, or are less likely to pass through carbon-related costs in their product prices. The results suggest that although the EU ETS has been deemed unsuccessful so far due to over-allocation and low carbon price, shareholders initially perceived allowance holdings as value relevant. Our results highlight that a significant carbon market price and addressing pass-through costing are essential for successful future reforms of the EU ETS and other analogous carbon cap-and-trade systems implemented or planned worldwide.     

Comparison of steam-alkali-chemical and microwave-alkali pretreatment for enhancing the enzymatic saccharification of oil palm trunk

This paper demonstrates two different pretreatment protocols for oil palm trunks (OPT); steam-alkali-chemical (SAC) and microwave-alkali (Mw-A) method. The composition, morphology, structure and crystallinity of OPT before and after pretreatment were analyzed. The effectiveness of the pretreated methods was investigated by performing enzymatic saccharification on the OPT. The physiochemical factors namely: enzyme ratio (cellulase to β-glucosidase), pH, temperature and substrate loading (w/v) on enzymatic saccharification were also investigated. The pre-determined optimal conditions were then used for further enzymatic hydrolysis of raw and pretreated OPT substrates. The results revealed a huge degree of reduction in lignin, up to 89% for SAC treated OPT and at least 15% for Mw-A treated OPT sample as compared to untreated ones. High glucose accumulation (79.4%) was obtained after 72 h saccharification for both pretreated OPT samples.     

Vocal production in postpartum dairy cows: Temporal organization and association with maternal and stress behaviors

Mammalian vocalizations can encode contextual information in both the spectrographic components of their individual vocal units and in their temporal organization. Here we observed 23 Holstein-Friesian dairy cows immediately after birth during interactions with their calf and when their calf was separated to the other side of a fence line. We investigated whether the vocalizations emitted in these postpartum contexts would vary temporally. We also described the maternal and stress behaviors preceding and following postpartum vocal production using kinematic diagrams and characterized call sequence structure. The kinematic diagrams highlight the disruption of maternal responses caused by calf separation and show that behavioral and vocal patterns varied according to the cows' emotional states and proximity to the calf in both contexts. During calf interactions, cows mainly produced closed-mouth calls simultaneous to licking their calf, whereas an escalation of stress responses was observed during calf separation, with the cows approaching the fence line, becoming alert to the calf, and emitting more mixed and open-mouth calls. Call sequences were similarly structured across contexts, mostly containing repetitions of a single call type, with a mean interval of 0.57 s between calls and a greater cumulative vocalization duration, attributed to an increased number of vocal units per sequence. Overall, calf separation was associated with a greater proportion of calls emitted as a sequence (inverse of single isolated calls), a shorter interval between separate call sequences, and a greater number of vocal units per sequence, compared with calf interactions. These temporal vocal features varied predictably with the high stress expression from cows during calf separation and may represent temporal modulations of emotional expression. Despite the noisy farm soundscape, empirical call type and temporal vocal features were easy to measure; thus, findings could be applied to future cattle studies wishing to analyze vocalizations for on-farm welfare assessments.     

Do OPEC announcements influence oil prices?

This paper investigates the effect of OPEC production decisions (increase, cut, maintain) on both WTI and Brent crude oil prices between Q1 1991 and Q1 2015 by employing the event study methodology and by using two indices as benchmarks (BCI and S&P GSCI). We employ an EGARCH model to take into account the high volatility of oil prices and some stylized facts characterizing this volatility. We find that the impact of OPEC’s announcements on oil prices (i)evolves over time and among decisions, (ii) is more significant for production cut and maintain, (iii) is different for WTI and Brent prices, and (iv) is sensitive to the benchmark index. Moreover, OPEC’s decisions depend on the exploration and extraction cost of more expensive/unconventional oil resources.     

An event-based notification approach for the delivery of patient medical information

Data sharing is pivotal in current medical practice so as to better treat patients by taking the best medical decisions, and to optimize healthcare costs by reducing the need to repeat unnecessary medical tests and by better managing healthcare structures. To improve the delivery of treatment outcomes and test results, the request-triggered retrieval of clinical documents provided by current Health Information Systems is not sufficient. The addition of a notification solution is necessary to inform users as soon as their clinical documents of interest have been produced so that they can retrieve them by means of the traditional Health Information Systems. In addition, this notification solution also has to implement the event-based information exchange patterns, which characterize the current attempts at integrating heterogeneous Health Information Systems in a seamless manner.This paper proposes an architecture for an effective asynchronous notification of clinical documents. Our intention is to bridge the gap between primary and secondary care, and between the clinical personnel and the administrators. The proposed solution is based on a publish/subscribe service, properly extended to allow us to jointly notify collections of correlated documents. Moreover, it has been implemented by means of a web service-based platform in accordance with the Web Service Notification specification so as to obtain a solution easy to integrate and manage. A systematic analysis has been carried out to assess the suitability of the implemented solution to satisfy the requirements for notifying medical documents, and to evaluate the notification latency in different use conditions.     

The Flexible Rare Event Sampling Harness System (FRESHS)

We present the software package FRESHS (http://www.freshs.org) for parallel simulation of rare events using sampling techniques from the ‘splitting’ family of methods. Initially, Forward Flux Sampling (FFS) and Stochastic Process Rare Event Sampling (SPRES) have been implemented. These two methods together make rare event sampling available for both quasi-static and full non-equilibrium regimes. Our framework provides a plugin system for software implementing the underlying physics of the system of interest. At present, example plugins exist for our framework to steer the popular MD packages GROMACS, LAMMPS and ESPResSo, but due to the simple interface of our plugin system, it is also easy to attach other simulation software or self-written code. Use of our framework does not require recompilation of the simulation program. The modular structure allows the flexible implementation of further sampling methods or physics engines and creates a basis for objective comparison of different sampling algorithms.     

Risk assessment in ramps for heavy vehicles—A French study

This paper presents the results of a study dealing with the risk for heavy vehicles in ramps. Two approaches are used. On one hand, statistics are applied on several accidents databases to detect if ramps are more risky for heavy vehicles and to define a critical value for longitudinal slope. χ² test confirmed the risk in ramps and statistical analysis proved that a longitudinal slope superior to 3.2% represents a higher risk for heavy vehicles. On another hand, numerical simulations allow defining the speed profile in ramps for two types of heavy vehicles (tractor semi-trailer and 2-axles rigid body) and different loads. The simulations showed that heavy vehicles must drive more than 1000 m on ramps to reach their minimum speed. Moreover, when the slope is superior to 3.2%, tractor semi-trailer presents a strong decrease of their speed until 50 km/h. This situation represents a high risk of collision with other road users which drive at 80–90 km/h. Thus, both methods led to the determination of a risky configuration for heavy vehicles: ramps with a length superior to 1000 m and a slope superior to 3.2%. An application of this research work concerns design methods and guidelines. Indeed, this study provides threshold values than can be used by engineers to make mandatory specific planning like a lane for slow vehicles.     

New phospho-tellurite glasses with optimization of transition temperature and refractive index for hybrid microstructured optical fibers

The glass formation and compositional dependences of glass thermal properties and optical properties were investigated in TeO₂–ZnO–Na₂O–P₂O₅ system. The refractive index at 1.55 μm and glass transition temperature varied in a wide range from 1.513 to 2.036 and from 265 °C to 376 °C by controlling of the TeO₂/P₂O₅ and ZnO/Na₂O content, respectively. These properties enable phospho-tellurite glasses with large freedom in designing and fabrication of hybrid microstructured optical fiber. The structures of glasses were investigated by Raman spectra to understand their dependence of structure on composition. Using the present glasses, some hybrid microstructured optical fibers with various dispersion profiles were designed.     

How to identify water from thickener aqueous solutions by touch

Water detection is one of the most crucial psychological processes for many animals. However, nobody knows the perception mechanism of water through our tactile sense. In the present study, we found that a characteristic frictional stimulus with large acceleration is one of the cues to differentiate water from water contaminated with thickener. When subjects applied small amounts of water to a glass plate, strong stick-slip phenomena with a friction force of 0.46 ± 0.30 N and a vertical force of 0.57 ± 0.36 N were observed at the skin surface, as shown in previous studies. Surprisingly, periodic shears with acceleration seven times greater than gravitational acceleration occurred during the application process. Finite-element analyses predicted that these strong stimuli could activate tactile receptors: Meissner''s corpuscle and Pacinians. When such stimuli were applied to the fingertips by an ultrasonic vibrator, a water-like tactile texture was perceived by some subjects, even though no liquid was present between the fingertip and the vibrator surface. These findings could potentially be applied in the following areas: materials science, information technology, medical treatment and entertainment.