The carbon-saving behaviour of residential households

The housing sector in 2004 was accountable for about 30% of total UK carbon emissions. The magnitude of this figure represents a significant imperative for policymakers to act on the sector through behavioural change strategies. Energy efficiency in households might easily be considered as driven mainly by economic motives, but this would not explain why even cost-free behavioural changes, like switching the lights off more often, are not adopted more widely. Literature has mainly concentrated either on the economic motives of pro-environmental behaviours or on the relevance of attitudes to shape them. Little has been said so far on the interaction between attitudes and the so called contextual factors. Diekmann and Presindörfer (2003) outlined the “low-cost hypothesis” which argues that pro-environmental behaviours are driven by pro-environmental attitudes only in the presence of low costs. However, little is known about households’ perceptions of costs and benefits in relation to energy saving behaviour. We propose to develop the low-cost hypothesis with a theoretical approach integrating attitudinal research and rational choice literature and explaining the interaction between tangible and intangible costs and benefits.Furthermore, the importance of resources such as education, information and income is highlighted in order to explain the magnitude of the perception of the costs and benefits considered by households. Finally, the scope for policy intervention aimed at shaping perceived costs and benefits to help the drive towards pro-environmental behaviour is discussed

On the low detection efficiency of disk water megamasers in Seyfert 2 AGN

Disk megamasers are a unique tool to study active galactic nuclei (AGN) sub-pc environment, and precisely measure some of their fundamental parameters. While the majority of disk megamasers are hosted in heavily obscured (i.e., Seyfert 2, Sy2) AGN, the converse is not true, and disk megamasers are very rarely found even in obscured AGN. The very low detection rate of such systems in Sy2 AGN could be due to the geometry of the maser beaming, which requires a strict edge-on condition. We explore some other fundamental factors which could play a role in a volume-limited survey of disk megamasers in Sy2 galaxies, most importantly the radio luminosity.Comment: 2 pages, 2 figures. To appear in the Proceedings IAU Symposium No. 336, 2017 "Astrophysical Masers: Unlocking the Mysteries of the Universe

Dissipative behaviour of reinforced-earth retaining structures under severe ground motion

This paper focuses on the seismic performance of geosynthetic-reinforced retaining walls (GRWs) that several evidences have shown to be generally adequate. This can be attributed to the dissipation of energy produced by the internal plastic mechanisms activated during the seismic shaking, and to an overall ductile behaviour related to the large deformation that can be accommodated by the soil-reinforcement system. Using a number of numerical computations, this work compares the behaviour of three idealized structures that were conceived in order to have a similar seismic resistance, that however is activated through different plastic mechanisms. The analyses include numerical pseudo-static computations, carried out iteratively to failure, and time-domain nonlinear dynamic analyses, in which acceleration time-histories were applied to the bottom boundary of the same numerical models used for the pseudo-static analyses. The results of the dynamic analyses were interpreted in the light of the plastic mechanisms obtained with the pseudo-static procedure, confirming that GRWs develop local plastic mechanisms during strong motion resulting in a significant improvement of their seismic performance

Towards A Theory Of Quantum Computability

We propose a definition of quantum computable functions as mappings between superpositions of natural numbers to probability distributions of natural numbers. Each function is obtained as a limit of an infinite computation of a quantum Turing machine. The class of quantum computable functions is recursively enumerable, thus opening the door to a quantum computability theory which may follow some of the classical developments

Simulazione termofluidodinamica di componenti di microturbine per generazione distribuita di energia

Il presente lavoro affronta l’analisi della combustione di idrogeno in una macchina turbogas tradizionale, allo scopo di individuare le prestazioni in termini di emissioni inquinanti. Inizialmente è fornito un quadro generale relativo alla CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics), approccio utilizzato per l’analisi numerica del combustore oggetto di studio, e al suo utilizzo, ai suoi limiti, ai modelli implementati nei comuni codici utilizzati nell’industria e nella ricerca. Sono state eseguite in una prima fase una serie di simulazioni termofluidodinamiche del combustore attraverso il codice di calcolo CFX-5.7 utilizzando parametri e modelli già utilizzati in precedenti lavori nei test numerici con codice FLUENT 6.2 ma con una diversa proposta per la modellazione della combustione, al fine di avere un buon accordo con i valori dati dalla pratica sperimentale. Successivamente l’analisi numerica è stata effettuata su codice FLUENT 6.2 con l’implementazione di cinetiche chimiche dettagliate per una migliore predizione sul valore degli ossidi di azoto. Il confronto con le misure sperimentali, ha permesso di giudicare l’idoneità dei modelli e dei parametri gestibili nella modellazione di combustori alimentati ad idrogeno

Il differenziale salariale di genere: teoria e fatti

Questa tesi intende evidenziare l'esistenza di un differenziale salariale di genere nel mercato del lavoro europeo ed intende mostrare quali siano i fenomeni del mercato del lavoro che lo determinano. Si indaga il fatto che pur a parità di produttività le donne siano sistematicamente meno retribuite degli uomini. Si indagano i fattori collegati alla produttività quali quelli strettamente riferibili al capitale umano come istruzione ed esperienza e altri fattori quali la segregazione occupazionale, settoriale e per tipologia di contratti e la struttura del salario a livello nazionale, facendo riferimento al caso dell'Italia. Si ricava infine che in Italia come in Europa, il differenziale salariale derivi da una struttura salariale decentrata che allarga il ventaglio retributivo e soprattutto derivi da pratiche del mercato del lavoro che destinano alle donne, segregate in occupazioni, settori e tipologie di contratti tradizionalmente “femminili”, i salari più bassi