Suchergebnisse

This report examines the structural barriers preventing investment in energy efficiency measures in Europe's Private Rented Sector (PRS) housing stock. The analysis is undertaken with reference to the broader trends in private renting, the regulatory landscape that currently exists, and the need to reduce social vulnerability and income poverty more generally. An introduction detailing historical and geographical trends in Europe, using case studies, and elaborating upon research and policy analysis from previous ENPOR project reports, serves to provide the starting point of the review. Following desk-based reviews of academic and grey literature, we identified Financial, Political/Regulatory, Social, and Geographical factors as key barriers to the implementation of energy efficiency policies in the PRS, which provide the backbone structure of this review. Several strands of analysis are drawn upon, including expert viewpoints and a stakeholder survey. The primary survey was conducted with a range of stakeholders working in the field of energy poverty, energy efficiency, housing, and decarbonisation, and served to generate primary data on knowledge of policies, ratings of importance on the identified barriers and governance scales, and understandings of the effects of policy on vulnerable groups. Partners from the ENPOR Consortium also provided expert situated viewpoints, which were drawn together to provide a holistic overview of factors contributing to the key barriers, as well as suggesting potential solutions from a multi-stakeholder perspective, supplemented by the survey's findings. A common theme running throughout our analyses and recommendations is that solutions to energy poverty in the private rented sector are situated across the barriers, and are ultimately financial, social, political/regulatory and technical. Although a practical way of identifying structural factors that can prevent investment in energy efficiency, this is where we reach the limits of the conceptual notion of 'barriers' as an ...

Funding: European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework ERC Grant Agreement No. 615613; German Research Foundation via Grant-No.: Re2974/10-1, Gi1121/1-1. ; We provide experimental and theoretical insight into single-emitter lasing effects in a quantum dot (QD)-microlaser under controlled variation of background gain provided by off-resonant discrete gain centers. For that purpose, we apply an advanced two-color excitation concept where the background gain contribution of off-resonant QDs can be continuously tuned by precisely balancing the relative excitation power of two lasers emitting at different wavelengths. In this way, by selectively exciting a singleresonant QD and off-resonant QDs, we identify distinct single-QD signatures in the lasing characteristics and distinguish between gain contributions of a single resonant emitter and a countable number of offresonant background emitters to the optical output of the microlaser. Our work addresses the importantquestion whether single-QD lasing is feasible in experimentally accessible systems and shows that, for the investigated microlaser, the single-QD gain needs to be supported by the background gain contribution ofoff-resonant QDs to reach the transition to lasing. Interestingly, while a single QD cannot drive the investigated micropillar into lasing, its relative contribution to the emission can be as high as 70% and it dominates the statistics of emitted photons in the intermediate excitation regime below threshold. ; Publisher PDF ; Peer reviewed

Abstract. There is a wide variety of flood damage models in use internationally, differing substantially in their approaches and economic estimates. Since these models are being used more and more as a basis for investment and planning decisions on an increasingly large scale, there is a need to reduce the uncertainties involved and develop a harmonised European approach, in particular with respect to the EU Flood Risks Directive. In this paper we present a qualitative and quantitative assessment of seven flood damage models, using two case studies of past flood events in Germany and the United Kingdom. The qualitative analysis shows that modelling approaches vary strongly, and that current methodologies for estimating infrastructural damage are not as well developed as methodologies for the estimation of damage to buildings. The quantitative results show that the model outcomes are very sensitive to uncertainty in both vulnerability (i.e. depth–damage functions) and exposure (i.e. asset values), whereby the first has a larger effect than the latter. We conclude that care needs to be taken when using aggregated land use data for flood risk assessment, and that it is essential to adjust asset values to the regional economic situation and property characteristics. We call for the development of a flexible but consistent European framework that applies best practice from existing models while providing room for including necessary regional adjustments.

Steps at metal surfaces may influence energetics and kinetics of catalytic reactions in unexpected ways. Here, we report a significant reduction of the CO saturation coverage in Pd vicinal surfaces, which in turn is relevant for the light-off of the CO oxidation reaction. The study is based on a systematic investigation of CO adsorption on vicinal Pd(111) surfaces making use of a curved Pd crystal. A combined X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy and DFT analysis allows us to demonstrate that an entire row of atomic sites under Pd steps remains free of CO upon saturation at 300 K, leading to a step-density-dependent reduction of CO coverage that correlates with the observed decrease of the light-off temperature during CO oxidation in vicinal Pd surfaces. ; We acknowledge financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (Grants MAT-2017-88374-P, PID2019-107338RB-C63, PID2020-116093RB-C44), the Basque Government (Grants IT-1255-19), the Knut and Alice Wallenberg foundation (DNR KAW 2015.0058 "Atomistic Design of new Catalysts"), and the Swedish Research Council (DNR 349-2011-6491 "Catalysis on the Atomic Scale"). Financial support is acknowledged from the Swedish Research Council (2016-5234). The DFT calculations were performed at C3SE (Göteborg) via a SNIC grant. We acknowledge MAX IV Laboratory support, in particular Alexei Preobrajenski, for their help in synchrotron experiments, which were carried out at the FlexPES beamline under Proposal 20190717. Research conducted at MAX IV, a Swedish national user facility, is supported by the Swedish Research council under contract 2018-07152, the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems under contract 2018-04969, and Formas under contract 2019-02496. Moreover, the research leading to this result has been supported by the project CALIPSOplus under the Grant Agreement 730872 from the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation HORIZON 2020. ; Peer reviewed

Im Mittelpunkt der Ausgabe steht das Thema Ausbildungsreife. Nach einer theoretischen Analyse des Begriffs werden praktische Erfahrungen aus der Sicht der AUDI AG sowie verschiedene bildungspolitische Modellprojekte vorgestellt. Elternarbeit wird als Potenzial zur Förderung benachteiligter Jugendlicher thematisiert. Ausbildungsreife und Berufswahl werden zudem aus der Perspektive von Berufsbildungsexperten und des Psychologischen Dienstes der Bundesagentur für Arbeit beleuchtet. (IAB) Inhaltsverzeichnis: Karin Rebmann, Dietmar Tredop: Ausbildungsreife: Worthülse ohne Inhalt? (3-6); Manfred Laux: Ausbildungsreife und Berufseignung (7-9); Christian Warneke: Das "Hamburger Hochschulmodell" (10-12); Petra Bröckmann, Günter Lübke, Dirk Meinhardt: Projektvorhaben "Berufsfahrplan" (13-15); Anke Spies: Motivationspotenzial und Förderungsressource (16-19); Naomi Gericke, Verena Eberhard, Joachim Gerd Ulrich: Ausbildungsreife aus Sicht der Ausbildungsexperten (20-22); Reinhard Hilke: Berufswahl- und berufslaufbahnunterstützende Eignungsbeurteilung (23-25); Franz-Josef Hülsmann: Maßnahmen zur Förderung von Jugendlichen an berufsbildenden Schulen (26-27); Margareta Brauer-Schröder: Der Berufswahlpass (28-30); Stefan Bünting: Pakt für Ausbildung (31-32).

Die Leistungen zur Teilhabe behinderter Menschen am Arbeitsleben in den Bereichen der Arbeitsförderung und der Grundsicherung für Arbeitsuchende sind eine bedeutende Komponente der Arbeitsmarktpolitik. Mit der mehrstufig angelegten Evaluation von Leistungen zur Teilhabe behinderter Menschen am Arbeitsleben sollen Ansatzpunkte für die Optimierung der praktischen Umsetzung und die Fortentwicklung des rechtlichen Rahmens dieser Leistungen ermittelt werden. Bislang wurden drei Forschungsmodule durchgeführt. Deren Ergebnisse werden mit dem hier vorliegenden Bericht veröffentlicht. Inhaltsverzeichnis: Teil A: Basisstudie zur Evaluation von Leistungen zur Teilhabe behinderter Menschen am Arbeitsleben; Zusammenfassender Bericht. Teil B: Implementationsstudie 1 zur Evaluation von Leistungen zur Teilhabe behinderter Menschen am Arbeitsleben; Zusammenfassender Bericht. Teil C: Beratung zu wirkungsanalytischen Ansätzen für die Evaluation von Leistungen zur Teilhabe behinderter Menschen am Arbeitsleben: Zusammenfassender Bericht.

Quantitative models are crucial to almost every area of ecosystem science. They provide a logical structure that guides and informs empirical observations of ecosystem processes. They play a particularly crucial role in synthesizing and integrating our understanding of the immense diversity of ecosystem structure and function. Increasingly, models are being called on to predict the effects of human actions on natural ecosystems. Despite the widespread use of models, there exists intense debate within the field over a wide range of practical and philosophical issues pertaining to quantitative modeling. This book--which grew out of a gathering of leading experts at the ninth Cary Conference--explores those issues. The book opens with an overview of the status and role of modeling in ecosystem science, including perspectives on the long-running debate over the appropriate level of complexity in models. This is followed by eight chapters that address the critical issue of evaluating ecosystem models, including methods of addressing uncertainty. Next come several case studies of the role of models in environmental policy and management. A section on the future of modeling in ecosystem science focuses on increasing the use of modeling in undergraduate education and the modeling skills of professionals within the field. The benefits and limitations of predictive (versus observational) models are also considered in detail. Written by stellar contributors, this book grants access to the state of the art and science of ecosystem modeling