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The EU Project AquaTerra generates knowledge about the river-soil-sediment-groundwater system and delivers scientific information of value for river basin management. In this article, the use and ignorance of scientific knowledge in decision making is explored by a theoretical review. We elaborate on the 'two-communities theory', which explains the problems of the policy-science interface by relating and comparing the different cultures, contexts, and languages of researchers and policy makers. Within AquaTerra, the EUPOL subproject examines the policy-science interface with the aim of achieving a good connection between the scientific output of the project and EU policies. We have found two major barriers, namely language and resources, as well as two types of relevant relationships: those between different research communities and those between researchers and policy makers. © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Intrinsic stresses in bondpads may lead to early failure of IC's. In order to determine the intrinsic stresses in semiconductor structures, a new procedure is set up. This procedure is a combined experimental/numerical approach which consists of the following steps: First, a conductive gold layer (20 nm thickness) is deposited on the power line surface; subsequently markers (small holes) for Digital Image Correlation (DIC) purposes are added using a focused ion beam (FIB). Next, a scanning electron microscope (SEM) is used to image the original ('before') surface. The FIB is then used to mill a slot into the surface to release the intrinsic stresses, which results in contraction of the surface. Finally, a SEM image is made of the contracted ('after') surface. DIC is used to determine in-plane displacements due to FIB milling. DIC performance was verified by the traditional strain gauge approach. An inverse Finite Element (FE) modelling approach is used to determine the before mentioned stresses. The slot displacements found with DIC are inserted into an FE model of the product. Stresses which now emerge from closing the (virtual) FIB slot correspond to the intrinsic stresses which were originally present in the product. Favorable positions for FIB milling are near the edge of the structure and displacements are determined to be in the nanometer range. This indicates a presence of substantial (50-250 MPa) compressive stresses. Displacements near the center of the structure appear to be smaller than DIC resolution. ©2010 IEEE.

It is well known that building installations for indoor climate control, consume a substantial part of the total energy consumption and that at present these installations use much more energy than required due to inadequate settings and poor control and management strategies. European building energy management is diffuse since design, manufacture, engineering, installation, commissioning and maintenance processes are involved contemporary and the wide variety of climates, building types, spaces, control and management methods and national regulations. Addressing the complexity of optimisation, integration and self adaptation through smart building control systems potentially save substantial quantities of energy while improving the present standards for indoor comfort. The EDIFICIO project aims at developing an innovative, adaptive, integrated control systems for optimal energy management and indoor comfort in buildings based on the utilisation of Soft Computing Techniques (SCT), specially Fuzzy Logic (FL), Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) and Genetic Algorithms (GAs). The EDIFICO project is partly funded by the European Commission DGXII within the frame of the JOULE III Programme

Het gebruik van kernenergie heeft ons energieverbruik verhoogd en de overgang naar duurzame energie vertraagd. Bovendien worden de risico’s in een dicht gebied als het onze onderschat.

Closed-ring operation of distribution grids has several advantages over the more commonly used open-ring distribution grid topology. Power flows will naturally balance out between the feeders of a (typically) ring shaped medium voltage distribution grid. This leads to reduced peak loading of components, and therefore reduced grid losses. As such, investments in grid reinforcement can be postponed or avoided, while operational costs can be reduced. The negative side-effect of closed-ring operation, reduced reliability of supply, can be (largely) mitigated by implementing distribution automation. This paper discusses and analyses the potential grid loss reduction of closed-ring operation, the effects on reliability and possible mitigations and finally field-test results to validate the theoretical analysis.

This paper traces the origins of the Petroleum Equalization Fund (PEF) in Nigeria and describes the environment in which it has operated. The paper argues that the PEF has failed to live up to its mandate of equalizing the prices of petroleum products across the country. This is in part because such equalization schemes create arbitrage opportunities which are always prone to exploitation. The rentier nature of the Nigerian state and the prevalence of corruption in the country have added fodder to such exploitations. The consequence of the above is that PEF has simply become one of the inefficient channels of subsidizing the price of petroleum products in Nigeria. This paper therefore recommends that the starting point in the efforts by the Nigerian government to undertake petrol subsidy reform in the country should be to abolish the PEF.

In this chapter, a battery-less wireless sensor system is proposed, which is called the Power REduced MonolithIc Sensor System (PREMISS), based on monolithic sensors with functions of wireless power receiving, wireless sensing, and wireless data transfer functions. In the PREMISS system, a base-station transmits RF energy and information to sensor nodes via pencil beams and receives the information back from those sensor nodes. In this chapter, the system analysis of the PREMISS system is presented.

The large thermal potentials with geothermal gradient of abandoned wells provide the possibility and opportunity for carbon-neutrality transition of district heating systems, whereas energy harvesting from abandoned geothermal wells is full of challenges, due to the considerable initial investment in economic cost, system performance degradation, and so on. In this chapter, a systematic and comprehensive review on the application techniques of abandoned wells is presented, in terms of advanced thermal/power conversions, renewable integrations for district heating, and strategies for performance enhancement. Discussions on real applications have been conducted and future prospects presented, from perspectives of lifetime system performance, techno-economic feasibility analysis, and potential assessment of abandoned wells for carbon-neutrality transition. The results of this chapter can provide preliminary knowledge and cutting-edge technologies on renewable integrations with abandoned wells, so as to demonstrate techno-economic-environmental potentials of abandoned wells and contributions toward carbon-neutrality transition. Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public. Design & Construction Management

This paper shows how the European Odysseus project [6] reduces energy/CO2 by improved decision making based on multi-level, semantic, energy configuration/monitoring data fully based on open standards (W3C Linked Data approach / Semantic Web technology) and an open source semantic server (Apache Marmotta) implementing those standards. © 2015 IEEE.