Oil dependency,political institutions,and urban–rural disparities in access to electricity in Africa

In line with the resource curse literature, this paper examines the effect of oil dependency on the disparities in access to electricity between urban and rural areas in Africa, conditional on the quality of political institutions. Based on data from 36 African countries over the period 2000–2017, our investigation suggests that oil rents (% of GDP) increase urban–rural disparities in access to electricity. However, the quality of institutions shapes the effect of oil dependency on these disparities. Specifically, a 10% increase in the institutional quality score reduces the adverse effects of oil rent on electricity access disparity by around 19%, and the negative impact of oil dependency on urban–rural disparities is reversed when institutional quality reaches a score of 52% on a scale from 0 to 100. The robustness tests support these results and call for strengthening the quality of institutions to overcome the resource curse in Africa.     

Metropolitan Open-Space Protection with Uncertain Site Availability

Abstract:  Urban planners acquire open space to protect natural areas and provide public access to recreation opportunities. Because of limited budgets and dynamic land markets, acquisitions take place sequentially depending on available funds and sites. To address these planning features, we formulated a two-period site selection model with two objectives: maximize the expected number of species represented in protected sites and maximize the expected number of people with access to protected sites. These objectives were both maximized subject to an upper bound on area protected over two periods. The trade-off between species representation and public access was generated by the weighting method of multiobjective programming. Uncertainty was represented with a set of probabilistic scenarios of site availability in a linear-integer formulation. We used data for 27 rare species in 31 candidate sites in western Lake County, near the city of Chicago, to illustrate the model. Each trade-off curve had a concave shape in which species representation dropped at an increasing rate as public accessibility increased, with the trade-off being smaller at higher levels of the area budget. Several sites were included in optimal solutions regardless of objective function weights, and these core sites had high species richness and public access per unit area. The area protected in period one depended on current site availability and on the probabilities of sites being undeveloped and available in the second period. Although the numerical results are specific for our study, the methodology is general and applicable elsewhere.     

曝气生物滤池快速启动和活性保持性能研究

研究了两级曝气生物滤池处理生活污水时各级的快速启动和在低负荷下活性保持的能力,考察了出水中主要污染物和生物滤池内生物量随时间的变化情况。结果表明,碳氧化生物滤池从低负荷恢复时,所需要的时间与活性保持时的负荷大小有关,负荷越小,所需要的时间越长。在极端情况下,恢复时间接近一次完全启动的时间,因此碳氧化生物滤池的低负荷维持并没有太大的实际意义。而硝化生物滤池在低负荷下活性保持良好,重新启动仅需要完全启动1/10的时间,这就有可能以低成本实现硝化生物滤池的活性保持。     

加速厌氧污泥颗粒化的研究进展

厌氧污泥颗粒化过程是一个多阶段过程,取决于操作条件、基质组成等多种因素.在简述污泥颗粒化机理及影响因素的基础上,综述了近年来加速厌氧污泥颗粒化的研究进展,指出厌氧污泥颗粒化应用前景广阔,并提出了几点建议.希望能为厌氧污泥颗粒化技术的工程实践提供一定的理论基础.     

地震信息上报的计算机快速处理方法

利用Visual Basic修改Word格式的速报地震震情模板文档,进而直接在Word窗口发送传真,界面清晰明朗,使得准确率大大提高,更值得一提的是对地震事件的反映速度提高,并可为制作动画GIF图片的手机彩信做准备。通过Visual Basic利用Excel的强大报表功能,可使得日常的报表统计工作准确、省时、方便,还可以按要求格式生成记事本文件,使得所需TXT文件正确。利用Visual Basic结合DOS命令PING实现网络通断测试状态结果的TXT文本显示,省去大量的IP地址翻本查找和手工命令操作,还可按要求定时自动检查,记录日志,并可在网络断时发出声音警报,让计算机代替人工的烦琐操作。     

高温水萃取在食品安全快速检测中的应用研究

采用高温水萃取方法对食品中农药残留、甲醛、亚硝酸盐、抗生素等成分进行快速萃取,结合分光光度法、液相色谱等分析方法进行了上述成分的快速检测研究。结果表明,蔬菜中甲胺磷的萃取条件为pH=8.0的磷酸缓冲溶液、萃取温度120℃、萃取时间2～3min;腐竹中甲醛的萃取条件为0.1mLH3PO4溶液/10mL、萃取温度120℃、萃取时间5min;肉制品中亚硝酸盐的萃取条件为5mL硼砂饱和溶液/10mL、萃取温度120℃、萃取时间5min;饲料中四环素的萃取条件为pH=2.0的盐酸溶液、萃取温度100℃、萃取时间4min。与现有的蒸馏、振荡萃取、超声萃取等预处理方法比较,高温水萃取法具有萃取效率高、精密度好、快速、简便和不使用有机溶剂的优点,可以满足实际样品快速检测的需要。     

Perceptions towards solar mini‐grid systems in India: A multi‐stakeholder analysis

This study identifies and assesses the perspectives of four key stakeholder groups towards solar minigrids in rural India. The stakeholders considered are policymakers, minigrid developers and operators, development organizations, and national grid representatives. Recent state and national policies in India have increased the focus on minigrids and their services. In this study, stakeholder interviews were employed to identify the attitudes towards the recent electricity policy, the underlying context for minigrid development, the role of minigrids in rural electrification, and the inclusion of minigrid systems within the larger framework of electricity sector policies by the recent government minigrid policies. Results indicate that stakeholders agree that minigrids, as a rural electricity service, are currently viable to complement the national grid due to their high reliability, performance in remote regions, and diminishing cost per unit. However, stakeholders disagree on the future outcomes, with diverging views on the priority of minigrids as an electrification tool in the face of the expanding central grid, the ideal implementation strategy for minigrids, and the potential for grid‐minigrid interaction. Based on stakeholder feedback, the growth of minigrids in India is likely to be constrained by the confidence in recent policies, necessitating more frequent dialogue among decision makers and a solidified relationship to the national electricity grid.     

Access for all? Beach access and equity in the Detroit metropolitan area

Beaches are a unique type of recreation setting, offering a variety of water- and land-based opportunities that can meet residents’ diverse and complex recreation needs. Providing and improving equitable access to recreation amenities such as beaches have been recognized as essential responsibilities of public leisure agencies. This study assessed the degree of equity inherent in the distribution of public beaches in the Detroit metropolitan area; to account for spatial effects, phenomena rarely considered in prior equity analyses, geographically weighted regression was employed. Considerable local variations in the relationships between level of access to public beaches and population density, proportion of elderly population and educational attainment were identified. Such findings can help parks and recreation agencies better understand local patterns of equity, an important first step in facilitating the formulation of more efficient and effective planning and policy approaches.     

《名古屋议定书》政府间委员会(ICNP)议题谈判成效

《生物多样性公约》缔约方大会第10次会议(COP-10)决定设立名古屋议定书政府间委员会(ICNP),主要负责《关于遗传资源获取与惠益分享(ABS)的名古屋议定书》(简称《议定书》)缔约方大会第1次会议(COP/MOP-1)的筹备工作。2011年6月、2012年7月和2014年2月,分别在加拿大、印度和韩国共召开了3次会议。会议对《议定书》生效和执行将面临的问题开展了讨论。通过详细梳理不同缔约方与其它国家政府对两年期方案预算、COP/MOP议事规则、COP/MOP-1临时议程草案、全球多边惠益分享机制、ABS信息交换所、能力建设、意识提高、遵约程序和机制、监测与报告以及示范合同条款等主要议题所持观点,总结了会议的进展动态,综合分析了各议题的谈判成效,深入探讨了名古屋议定书委员会对《议定书》生效和执行的积极作用以及面临的挑战。     

Learning lessons from incidents: A paradigm shift is overdue

Drawing on historical data we show that the international community of process engineers has not been good at learning lessons from their past accidents. We call for a paradigm change in the way we approach this and the creation of a single new, multi-national, multilingual accident database that is free at the point of use and that includes immediate and underlying causes as well as “lessons learned”. It must be user-friendly and provide links to key source documents. The purpose of this paper is to challenge those in authority, and with the power to do so, to make this happen. We give some preliminary views on what may be required. In countries that so choose this could include an element of compulsion to consult the database in specific circumstances and a sign-off procedure to verify that this has been done.