Credit Values Research Articles

Comparison of Capacity Credit Calculation Methods for Conventional Power Plants and Wind Power

Several methods for computing capacity credit values of power plants have been presented over the years. This paper uses an empirical approach to investigate and compare different properties of four typical capacity credit definitions. It is shown that the choice of definition indeed can have a significant impact on the results. Concerning three of the analyzed methods, it is found that important factors that influence the capacity credit are the overall generation adequacy and the penetration factor of the power plant; this means that the same generating unit will generally have a higher capacity credit if added to a system with high loss of load probability, and the unit will have a higher capacity credit if its installed capacity is small compared to the total installed capacity of the system. The results of the fourth method only depend on the size and availability of the generating units.

Soil Carbon Sequestration Strategies with Alternative Tillage and Nitrogen Sources under Risk

This study examines the economic potential of using either no-tillage or conventional tillage with either commercial nitrogen or cattle manure to sequester soil in continuous corn production. This research uses stochastic efficiency with respect to a function to determine the preferred production systems under various risk preferences and utility-weighted certainty equivalent risk premiums to determine the carbon credit values needed to motivate adoption of systems, which sequester higher levels of carbon. The results indicate that no-tillage and cattle manure increase carbon sequestration. Carbon credits or government program incentives are not required to entice risk-averse managers to use no-tillage, but are required to encourage manure use as a means of sequestering additional carbon even at historically high nitrogen prices. New environmental rules for confined animal feeding operations may increase the demand for land to apply manure as a primary nutrient source and participation in the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, Conservation Security Program, and a carbon credit market to obtain payments to offset some or all of the costs of manure application.

The structure of higher education and history of economic thought in the UK

From what I know, British universities are not making radical changes in order to conform with the requirements of the Bologna Process. My guess is that some academics in Britain are even unaware that it is happening, and many are unaware of its potentially radical implications, though those involved in the administration of teaching will be very familiar with it. The main reason is that, apart from some details (such as the provision of certain documentation and assignment of credit values) our system conforms roughly to what is required (of course, there is enormous uncertainty about what is required another reason for deciding to wait and see).

Essential SMSs

A semiconductor factory contains hundreds of pieces of equipment. More reliable service by equipment managers is required to increase the utilization of equipment and improve product quality and yield. Therefore, developing a reliable service management scheme (SMS) for semiconductor factory management systems is essential. This study presents an SMS that applies Jini Technology and uses the design by contract technologies. The SMS has error-detecting and function-replacing capabilities. The SMS detects the malfunctioning of an equipment manager (service) and sends an event notice to the factory manager. The GEV in the SMS archives the credit values of all of the equipment managers so that the factory manager can select better equipment managers for service by checking their credit values. The illustrative example and the evaluation of the reliability improvement reveal that the proposed SMS provides an efficient, reliable, fault tolerant, and cost-effective mechanism for semiconductor factory management systems. Lastly, this illustrative example is successfully implemented and demonstrated and the core technology of SMS is transferred to and commercialized by Charming Systems Corporation.

Carbon Sequestration in Soil with Consideration of CO2 Emissions from Production Inputs: An Economic Analysis

An economic analysis of wheat and grain sorghum production systems that affect carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and sequester soil carbon (C) in metric tons (MT) is conducted. Expected net returns, changes in net C sequestered, and the value of C credits necessary to equate net returns from systems that sequester more C with those that sequester less is determined with and without adjustments for CO2 emissions from production inputs. Experiment station cropping practices, yield data, and soil C data for continuously cropped and rotated wheat and grain sorghum produced with conventional tillage and no-tillage are used. No-till has lower net returns because of somewhat lower yields and higher overall costs. Both crops produced under no-till have higher annual soil C gains than under conventional tillage. However, no-till systems have somewhat higher total atmospheric emissions of C from production inputs. The C credit values estimated in this study will equate net returns of no-tillage to conventional tillage range from $8.62 to $64.65/MT/yr when C emissions from production inputs are subtracted from soil C sequestered, and $8.59 to $60.54/MT/yr when atmospheric emissions are not considered. This indicates accounting for CO2 emissions from production inputs may not be necessary in the process to issue C credits.

Influence of body condition score on by-product yield and value from cull beef cows.

Mature beef cows (n = 122) representing British and Continental phenotypes were slaughtered to measure the influence of body condition score (BCS) on by-product yield and value. All cows were weighed and assigned BCS, based on a 9-point scale, 24 h before slaughter. By-product weights were obtained during the slaughter process and included blood, feet (with hooves attached), oxlips, tongue, gullet, trachea, cheek meat, head meat, skull, tripe, honeycomb tripe, large and small intestines, spleen, mesenteric fat, weasand meat, kidneys, heart, lungs, and oxtail. By-product yields were calculated as a percentage of the animal's live weight taken 24 h before slaughter. By-product values were computed by multiplying the weight of each piece removed during the slaughter process by the 1997 average price. Live weight increased linearly (P<.001) as BCS increased from 2 to 8, whereas Continental cows were approximately 86 kg heavier (P<.05) at slaughter than British cows. Cows assigned a BCS of 2 or 3 had greater (P<.05) skull, feet, tongue, tripe, honeycomb tripe, trachea, and lung yields than cows assigned a BCS of 4 or higher. On the other hand, BCS-7 and 8 cows had greater (P<.05) weights and yields of large intestines and mesenteric fat than cows given a BCS of 6 or lower. The feet, trachea, lungs, and bone meal from BCS-2 cows had the greatest (P<.05) value, whereas the value of the large intestine, oxtail, and mesenteric fat was highest (P<.05) for BCS-7 and 8 cows. Weight, yield, and value of the skull, head meat, and feet were greater (P<.05) for Continental cows than British cows. Total by-product value was quadratically (P<.001) related to BCS. Cows assigned a BCS of 5 had lower (P<.05) total by-product values than either BCS-2 or BCS-7 and 8 cows. Drop credit for BCS-2 cows was greater (P<.05) than BCS-3, 4, 5, and 6 cows, with cows assigned a BCS of 7 and 8 having intermediate drop credit values. Continental cows tended to have greater (P<.10) total by-product and drop credit values than British cows. Information from this study indicated that the BCS of cows at the time of slaughter had a profound influence on by-product yields and, more importantly, values of by-products that are credited back against the cost of production to the beef cattle producer.

A parallel fuzzy inference model with distributed prediction scheme for reinforcement learning

This paper proposes a three-layered parallel fuzzy inference model called reinforcement fuzzy neural network with distributed prediction scheme (RFNN-DPS), which performs reinforcement learning with a novel distributed prediction scheme. In RFNN-DPS, an additional predictor for predicting the external reinforcement signal is not necessary, and the internal reinforcement information is distributed into fuzzy rules (rule nodes). Therefore, using RFNN-DPS, only one network is needed to construct a fuzzy logic system with the abilities of parallel inference and reinforcement learning. Basically, the information for prediction in RFNN-DPS is composed of credit values stored in fuzzy rule nodes, where each node holds a credit vector to represent the reliability of the corresponding fuzzy rule. The credit values are not only accessed for predicting external reinforcement signals, but also provide a more profitable internal reinforcement signal to each fuzzy rule itself. RFNN-DPS performs a credit-based exploratory algorithm to adjust its internal status according to the internal reinforcement signal. During learning, the RFNN-DPS network is constructed by a single-step or multistep reinforcement learning algorithm based on the ART concept. According to our experimental results, RFNN-DPS shows the advantages of simple network structure, fast learning speed, and explicit representation of rule reliability.

日本病院薬剤師会「教育研修小委員会」生涯研修制度（案）を試行して

The Japanese Society of Hospital Pharmacists started a continuing education (CE) system for its members in April 1993. The program issues a certificate of completion to those who earn more than 70 credits a year. This paper presents the one year's trial of the CE activities conducted during April 1993 to March 1994 for the pharmacists working in the Fukushima Medical College Hospital Pharmacy.The average pharmacists partipated in 64.5 credits of CE activities. The average credits earned by 11 male pharmacists and 11 female pharmacists at our hospital pharmacy were 68.4 and 60.7, respectively. A total of 32%(7/22) of our pharmacists were able to earn 70 credits. No relationship was noted between the credit values earned by the pharmacists and their ages. Sixty-three percent of the total credits earned by the pharmacist were achieved in our hospitalbased and pharmacy-based conferences and 13% of total credits earned by pharmacists was responsible for lectures and studies held out-of-hospital, for example, at meetings sponsored by the branch of the Japanese Society of Hospital Pharmacists.It is necessary to encourage all pharmacists to keep up-to-date and improve their knowledge and judgment through CE.

Nitrogen Fertilizer Response Potential of Corn and Sorghum in Continuous and Rotated Crop Sequences

Crop management systems need to be designed to maintain economic profitability and minimize negative environmental impact. The objective of this study was to determine the effects of previous crop, yield potential, and residual soil nitrate (RSN) on grain yield response to N fertilizer of sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench.] and corn (Zea mays L.). Trials were conducted on 38 farms in 14 counties in eastern Nebraska during 1988 to 1990 and separated by previous crop into three groups, including (i) cereal [either sorghum, corn, oat (Avena sativa L.), wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), or rye (Secale cereale L.)1, (ii) soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.], and (iii) forage legume [either alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.), sweet clover (Melitotus officinalis Lam.), or red clover (Trifolium pratense L.)] [...]

A unique approach to performance standards for clinicians in a CMHC.

Performance standards were developed for clinicians of a large comprehensive mental health center. Clinicians were required to provide a minimum average of 20 hours of face-to-face service per week. Credit values, ranging from .5 to 3.0, were assigned for each hour of service provided based on the difficulty of the service to deliver and the amount of paperwork required. Total credits were considered as an extra accomplishment and utilized as a criterion for determining merit increases. The results indicated an increase in the utilization of family and group therapy as well as a more equitable system for evaluating widely differing services.