Oil and power industries’ responses to EU emissions trading: laggards or low-carbon leaders?

ABSTRACT

How have petroleum and power companies and their European industry associations responded to the EU emissions trading system (ETS)? Responses can be political, directed externally towards the initiation and reforms of the EU ETS itself, or internally and market-based, directed at low-carbon solutions. Proactive response strategies shape companies’ leadership potential. Variation in responses is explained by two models that differ in assumptions about corporate behaviour as well as the wider multilevel regulatory context in which companies operate. Responses are found to have converged within the two industries, with reactive companies following the proactive ones. Secondly, responses between the two industries increasingly diverge, with the power industry becoming much more proactive than the petroleum industry. The main explanation is found in the differing relevance of the two models and the wider regulatory context, particularly differing exposure to international competition and weak international climate agreements.     

Structural equation model analysis for the evaluation of overall driving performance: A driving simulator study focusing on driver distraction

Objective: The present research relies on 2 main objectives. The first is to investigate whether latent model analysis through a structural equation model can be implemented on driving simulator data in order to define an unobserved driving performance variable. Subsequently, the second objective is to investigate and quantify the effect of several risk factors including distraction sources, driver characteristics, and road and traffic environment on the overall driving performance and not in independent driving performance measures.

Methods: For the scope of the present research, 95 participants from all age groups were asked to drive under different types of distraction (conversation with passenger, cell phone use) in urban and rural road environments with low and high traffic volume in a driving simulator experiment. Then, in the framework of the statistical analysis, a correlation table is presented investigating any of a broad class of statistical relationships between driving simulator measures and a structural equation model is developed in which overall driving performance is estimated as a latent variable based on several individual driving simulator measures.

Results: Results confirm the suitability of the structural equation model and indicate that the selection of the specific performance measures that define overall performance should be guided by a rule of representativeness between the selected variables. Moreover, results indicate that conversation with the passenger was not found to have a statistically significant effect, indicating that drivers do not change their performance while conversing with a passenger compared to undistracted driving. On the other hand, results support the hypothesis that cell phone use has a negative effect on driving performance. Furthermore, regarding driver characteristics, age, gender, and experience all have a significant effect on driving performance, indicating that driver-related characteristics play the most crucial role in overall driving performance.

Conclusions: The findings of this study allow a new approach to the investigation of driving behavior in driving simulator experiments and in general. By the successful implementation of the structural equation model, driving behavior can be assessed in terms of overall performance and not through individual performance measures, which allows an important scientific step forward from piecemeal analyses to a sound combined analysis of the interrelationship between several risk factors and overall driving performance.     

“Hey Friend,Buy Green”: Social Media Use to Influence Eco-Purchasing Involvement

This study addresses the use of message carriers to convey corporate social responsibility information to promote eco-purchasing involvement. The work tests various media formats transmitted via social media. The effects of corporate vs. peer communication in a corporate social responsibility campaign in stimulating self-reported eco-purchasing involvement are indicated. The research varies communication dimensions of a fictional corporate social responsibility campaign sent through social media. Multiple media formats; new release; article; and advertisement were tested, as was the inclusion of social media persuasive sentiment. The analysis of source/format combinations and source/format/sentiment combinations found statistically significant differences for consumer-to-consumer communication in stimulating eco-purchasing involvement in certain circumstances. This research suggests an emerging role for the consumer communicator as a content co-creator and validates the effective use of articles and news releases instead of advertising on social media, yielding managerial and scholarly implications.     

Effects of EGR on performance and emissions of a diesel engine fuelled with balanites aegyptiaca/diesel blends

In this study, balanites Aegyptiaca (L.) Del biodiesel was blended in proportions of 10% and 20% on the volume basis with diesel fuel and tested in a single cylinder, VCR diesel engine under measured load conditions with varied EGR rates (0, 10 and 20%). The results showed that B10 and B20 blends shown a significant reduction rate in terms of NO_x emissions that were familiar with biodiesel blends. At peak load conditions, BTE increased slightly for test fuel blends compared with pure diesel fuel while the BSFC rate and EGT suffered from increasing and decreasing nature with respect to blending percentage. From the emissions point of view, with the increase in blends percentage, a significant reduction rate is observed in terms of CO and HC concentrations (up to 12.34 and 17.5%, respectively) while NOx emissions decreased at peak load conditions (up to 24.34%). HC and CO emissions decreased with increase in blends percentage. However, lower levels of NO_x and EGT (up to 21.37 and 8.47%, respectively) and the average increase in terms of BTE and BSFC (up to 2.83 and 2.9%, respectively) can be realised with B20 test fuel blend under 20% EGR rate.     

高效液相色谱-二极管阵列检测器测定邻苯二甲酸酯色谱条件优化

采用高效液相色谱-二极管阵列检测器对6种PAEs类物质进行测定,并对梯度洗脱条件、流速、检测波长等影响化合物色谱响应的关键参数进行优化。综合考虑样品测试效率、分析精度、实际样品中存在杂质干扰等因素,确定以乙腈-水为流动相进行梯度洗脱,洗脱0~11 min流动相乙腈-水梯度比例为50∶50,11 min后流动相调整为100%乙腈,各化合物均能完全分离;色谱分析流速为0.8 m L/min;PAEs的最佳吸收波长为225 nm。在优化的色谱条件下,6种PAEs的线性良好,相关系数均大于0.999 8,仪器检出限为0.08~0.12 mg/L,保留时间、峰面积的相对标准偏差分别为0.02%~0.60%、0.13%~0.86%。方法灵敏度较高,适合土壤等邻苯二甲酸酯含量较高基质样品的快速分析。     

On the search for mimetic patterns in environmental disclosure: an international perspective

In this paper, we assert and test the proposition that environmental disclosure (ED) is structured by institutionalised myths and that is why ED is decoupled from environmental performance and media pressures. Focusing on firms from Canada, France and Germany, findings show that ED mimetic isomorphism for different topics varies among countries and by industry sensitiveness to the environment. The results corroborate the institutional presumption that institutionalised myths vary among different contexts. Our findings also suggest that institutionalised ED structures may not reflect environmental performance, mimetic patterns being affected by environmental performance. However, the decoupling between ED mimetic isomorphism and environmental performance decrease when firms’ ED credibility is questioned by the media.     

不同类型压力对飞行员安全绩效的影响规律研究

为探究各类型压力对飞行员安全绩效的影响规律，为飞行员日常工作管理提供依据，选取某航空公司200名飞行员进行压力测试，并调取其近6 a的飞机品质(QAR)数据，通过相关性分析和线性回归分析将飞行员压力数据与其QAR数据进行对比分析，探究飞行员压力对飞行安全绩效的影响规律。研究结果表明:工作负荷压力、家庭压力、人际关系压力和组织管理压力会显著负向影响飞行员安全绩效；角色压力和专业发展压力会显著正向影响飞行员安全绩效。     

飞行员人因可靠性定量预测

为有效预测飞行员的人因可靠性,以保障飞行安全,基于认知可靠性与失误分析法(CREAM)的扩展法,建立飞行员人因可靠性定量预测模型。依据飞行员的任务特点,调整认知行为及认知功能。通过优化共同绩效条件(CPC)因子水平等级,并增加新的因子,改进CPC因子依赖规则,用于修正因子的初始评估结果,解决扩展法未考虑因子间关系的问题,从而完成模型的建立。利用回看分析法验证模型的有效性,采用所建立的模型和扩展法分别对已发生的飞行案例进行预测,并与实际发生结果对比分析。结果表明,与扩展法相比,采用飞行员定量预测模型得到的预测结果与案例发生结果所反映的控制模式更为匹配。     

水环境中26种类固醇激素的分析方法研究

建立了固相萃取-超高效液相-串联质谱法同时测定水环境中26种类固醇激素的分析方法。明确了取样体积为500 m L,Cleanert PEP为富集柱,乙酸乙酯为洗脱剂,甲醇为溶剂进行提取操作。选择了正离子模式,以0. 1%甲酸/甲醇-水为流动相,负离子模式以0. 1%氨水/乙腈-水为流动相,试样经AcquityTMUPLC BEH C18色谱柱分离后,选用质谱检测模式进行定性、定量分析。通过方法验证,26种类固醇激素的方法检出限为0. 3～1. 5 ng/L,测定下限为1. 2～6. 0 ng/L,代表性样品测定结果的相对标准偏差为2. 6%～13. 7%(n=6),加标回收率为71. 2%～121%。该方法操作便捷,灵敏度高,精密度和准确度良好,可适用于水环境中多种痕量、超痕量类固醇激素的定性定量分析。     

Mitigation performance of the process protection system on the accident consequences of H2S-containing natural gas release and explosion

Toxic loads and explosion overpressure loads pose grave threats to the offshore oil and gas industry. Many safety measures are adopted to prevent and mitigate the adverse impacts caused by toxic loads and explosion overpressure loads. As a general safety barrier, the process protection system has been widely used but rarely evaluated. In order to assess the barrier ability, the mitigation performance of the process protection system is concerned in this study. Firstly, several chain accidents of H₂S-containing natural gas leakage and explosion are simulated by varying the response time of the process protection system with CFD code FLACS. Qualitative assessment is conducted based on the variation of the dangerous load profiles. Furthermore, the quantitative assessment of the mitigation performance is accomplished by considering its ability in reducing the probability of fatality. Emergency evacuation and no emergency evacuation are considered respectively in the quantitative assessment. The results prove that the process protection system takes effect on mitigating the toxic impact and explosion overpressure impact. The results also demonstrate that although the emergency evacuation may result in a severer explosion load to the operator, the process protection system can mitigate the adverse impacts regardless of whether the emergency evacuation is conducted or not.