Default Case Research Articles

Accounting for the constrained availability of land: a comparison of bio‐based ethanol, polyethylene, and PLA with regard to non‐renewable energy use and land use

AbstractIn a bio‐based economy, chemicals, materials, biofuels, and other forms of energy will be produced from biomass. Pressure on agricultural land will thus increase, calling for highly efficient solutions in terms of land use, with minimal environmental impacts. In order to gain better insight into the available options and their trade‐offs, this perspective studies the production of polylactic acid (PLA), bioethanol, and bio‐based polyethylene (PE) from wheat, maize, sugarbeet, sugarcane, and Miscanthus. While in current agricultural practice some plants are harvested and used as whole crop (e.g. Miscanthus), for others only part of the plant is used, with the remainder being returned to the field (e.g. wheat straw). In order to obtain an understanding of the unused potential we assume as default case that all agricultural residues and processing co‐products are used for energy purposes, thereby replacing non‐renewable energy. We conclude that this agricultural practice would allow to substantially reduce non‐renewable energy use (NREU). We also find a clear difference in ranking depending on whether we study (i) NREU per (metric) tonne of product or (ii) Avoided NREU per hectare of land. The latter seems a suitable choice in a world where land availability is limited. In this case, we identify PLA as the preferred choice, irrespective of the type of crop. The production of ethanol for the replacement of fuels scores as the worst option for all crops. For each of the products studied, sugarcane offers the highest savings per hectare followed by sugarbeet. © 2012 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Regional impacts of ultrafine particle emissions from the surface of the Great Lakes

Abstract. Quantifying the impacts of aerosols on climate requires a detailed knowledge of both the anthropogenic and the natural contributions to the aerosol population. Recent work has suggested a previously unrecognized natural source of ultrafine particles resulting from breaking waves at the surface of large freshwater lakes. This work is the first modeling study to investigate the potential for this newly discovered source to affect the aerosol number concentrations on regional scales. Using the WRF-Chem modeling framework, the impacts of wind-driven aerosol production from the surface of the Great Lakes were studied for a July 2004 test case. Simulations were performed for a base case with no lake surface emissions, a case with lake surface emissions included, and a default case wherein large freshwater lakes emit marine particles as if they were oceans. Results indicate that the lake surface emissions can enhance the surface-level aerosol number concentration by ~20% over the remote northern Great Lakes and by ~5% over other parts of the Great Lakes. These results were highly sensitive to the new particle formation (i.e., nucleation) parameterization within WRF-Chem; when the new particle formation process was deactivated, surface-layer enhancements from the lake emissions increased to as much as 200%. The results reported here have significant uncertainties associated with the lake emission parameterization and the way ultrafine particles are modeled within WRF-Chem. Nevertheless, the magnitudes of the impacts found in this study suggest that further study to quantify the emissions of ultrafine particles from the surface of the Great Lakes is merited.

Impacts of future Indian greenhouse gas emission scenarios on projected climate change parameters deduced from MAGICC model

The MAGICC (Model for the Assessment of Greenhouse gas Induced Climate Change) model simulation has been carried out for the 2000–2100 period to investigate the impacts of future Indian greenhouse gas emission scenarios on the atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide besides other parameters like radiative forcing and temperature. For this purpose, the default global GHG (Greenhouse Gases) inventory was modified by incorporation of Indian GHG emission inventories which have been developed using three different approaches namely (a) Business-As-Usual (BAU) approach, (b) Best Case Scenario (BCS) approach and (c) Economy approach (involving the country’s GDP). The model outputs obtained using these modified GHG inventories are compared with various default model scenarios such as A1B, A2, B1, B2 scenarios of AIM (Asia-Pacific Integrated Model) and P50 scenario (median of 35 scenarios given in MAGICC). The differences in the range of output values for the default case scenarios (i.e., using the GHG inventories built into the model) vis-a-vis modified approach which incorporated India-specific emission inventories for AIM and P50 are quite appreciable for most of the modeled parameters. A reduction of 7% and 9% in global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions has been observed respectively for the years 2050 and 2100. Global methane (CH4) and global nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions indicate a reduction of 13% and 15% respectively for 2100. Correspondingly, global concentrations of CO2, CH4 and N2O are estimated to reduce by about 4%, 4% and 1% respectively. Radiative forcing of CO2, CH4 and N2O indicate reductions of 6%, 14% and 4% respectively for the year 2100. Global annual mean temperature change (incorporating aerosol effects) gets reduced by 4% in 2100. Global annual mean temperature change reduces by 5% in 2100 when aerosol effects have been excluded. In addition to the above, the Indian contributions in global CO2, CH4 and N2O emissions have also been assessed by India Excluded (IE) scenario. Indian contribution in global CO2 emissions was observed in the range of 10%–26%, 6%–36% and 10%–38% respectively for BCS, Economy and BAU approaches, for the years 2020, 2050 and 2100 for P50, A1B-AIM, A2-AIM, B1-AIM & B2-AIM scenarios. CH4 and N2O emissions indicate about 4%–10% and 2%–3% contributions respectively in the global CH4 and N2O emissions for the years 2020, 2050 and 2100. These Indian GHG emissions have significant influence on global GHG concentrations and consequently on climate parameters like RF and ∆T. The study reflects not only the importance of Indian emissions in the global context but also underlines the need of incorporation of country specific GHG emissions in modeling to reduce uncertainties in simulation of climate change parameters.

Environmental Assessment of a Sugar Cane Bagasse Food Tray Produced by Roots Biopack—Results of a Shortcut-Life Cycle Assessment

In this study, an environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) is performed, in which a sugar cane bagasse food tray (produced by Roots Biopack) is compared to food trays made from polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polylactide (PLA) and moulded pulp. This LCA study has been conducted both for the system boundary and cradle-to-grave. As default case, electricity from Wind energy is assumed for the bagasse tray factory in China. The cradle-to-factory gate results show that the bagasse tray has lowest impacts for non-renewable energy use (NREU) global warming, abiotic depletion and acidification. The PET tray has highest environmental impacts for NREU, global warming and abiotic depletion. Compared to PLA, the bagasse tray has lower impacts for NREU, abiotic depletion, acidification, eutrophication, global warming and land use, but higher impacts for renewable energy reuse (REU) and photochemical oxidant formation. If incineration with energy recovery is applied in the waste stage, the environmental impacts decrease, except for global warming. A contribution analysis of the full life cycle of the bagasse tray (cradle-to-grave)shows that waste management and the production of the sugar cane bagasse contribute most to the total environmental impacts. All in all, it can be concluded that the bagasse tray has good environmental performance.

Raising and Default Case in ECM Constructions

Raising and Default Case in ECM Constructions

What happens after a default: The conditional density approach

We present a general model for default times, making precise the role of the intensity process, and showing that this process allows for a knowledge of the conditional distribution of the default only “before the default”. This lack of information is crucial while working in a multi-default setting. In a single default case, the knowledge of the intensity process does not allow us to compute the price of defaultable claims, except in the case where the immersion property is satisfied. We propose in this paper a density approach for default times. The density process will give a full characterization of the links between the default time and the reference filtration, in particular “after the default time”. We also investigate the description of martingales in the full filtration in terms of martingales in the reference filtration, and the impact of Girsanov transformation on the density and intensity processes, and on the immersion property.

Phrasing and relative clauses in Chimwiini

We focus in this paper on two prosodic phenomena in Chimwiini: vowel length and accent (or High tone). Vowel length is determined in part by a lexical distinction between long and short vowels, and also by various morphophonemic processes that derive long vowels. Accent is penult in the default case, but final under certain morphosyntactic conditions. In order to account for the distribution of vowel length and the location of accents in a Chimwiini sentence, it is necessary to segment sentences into a sequence of phonological phrases. This paper examines the phonological phrasing of both canonical relative clauses and what we refer to as "pseudo-relative" clauses. An account of relative clause phrasing is of critical importance in Chimwiini due to the extensive use of pseudo-relatives in the language. Close examination of the pseudo-relatives reveals that their phrasing is not exactly the same as the phrasing of canonical relative clauses.

On the lack of case on the subject of infinitives in Polish

This article addresses the question of control in Polish in the context of the current Movement vs. Agree debate and the nature of Obligatory Control (OC). More specifically, it aims to show that many phenomena which are allegedly inconvenient for the movement-based theory – such as control into infinitives introduced by a lexical complementiser and the controller's case independence of the semi-predicate or predicative adjective – can be dealt with without postulating a case-marked OC PRO. The controller's escape from a CP-infinitive is made possible by a small modification of the mechanics of the Phase Impenetrability Condition (PIC) and the ‘derivational window’. The optionality of case transmission and case independence in certain contexts is ascribed to the optional phase-status of infinitives, the clitic-like properties of the bare complementiser and the application of the default case mechanism to semi-predicates and adjectival predicates.

Fast, accurate photon beam accelerator modeling using BEAMnrc: A systematic investigation of efficiency enhancing methods and cross‐section data

In this work, an investigation of efficiency enhancing methods and cross-section data in the BEAMnrc Monte Carlo (MC) code system is presented. Additionally, BEAMnrc was compared with VMC++, another special-purpose MC code system that has recently been enhanced for the simulation of the entire treatment head. BEAMnrc and VMC++ were used to simulate a 6 MV photon beam from a Siemens Primus linear accelerator (linac) and phase space (PHSP) files were generated at 100 cm source-to-surface distance for the 10 x 10 and 40 x 40 cm2 field sizes. The BEAMnrc parameters/techniques under investigation were grouped by (i) photon and bremsstrahlung cross sections, (ii) approximate efficiency improving techniques (AEITs), (iii) variance reduction techniques (VRTs), and (iv) a VRT (bremsstrahlung photon splitting) in combination with an AEIT (charged particle range rejection). The BEAMnrc PHSP file obtained without the efficiency enhancing techniques under study or, when not possible, with their default values (e.g., EXACT algorithm for the boundary crossing algorithm) and with the default cross-section data (PEGS4 and Bethe-Heitler) was used as the "base line" for accuracy verification of the PHSP files generated from the different groups described previously. Subsequently, a selection of the PHSP files was used as input for DOSXYZnrc-based water phantom dose calculations, which were verified against measurements. The performance of the different VRTs and AEITs available in BEAMnrc and of VMC++ was specified by the relative efficiency, i.e., by the efficiency of the MC simulation relative to that of the BEAMnrc base-line calculation. The highest relative efficiencies were approximately 935 (approximately 111 min on a single 2.6 GHz processor) and approximately 200 (approximately 45 min on a single processor) for the 10 x 10 field size with 50 million histories and 40 x 40 cm2 field size with 100 million histories, respectively, using the VRT directional bremsstrahlung splitting (DBS) with no electron splitting. When DBS was used with electron splitting and combined with augmented charged particle range rejection, a technique recently introduced in BEAMnrc, relative efficiencies were approximately 420 (approximately 253 min on a single processor) and approximately 175 (approximately 58 min on a single processor) for the 10 x 10 and 40 x 40 cm2 field sizes, respectively. Calculations of the Siemens Primus treatment head with VMC++ produced relative efficiencies of approximately 1400 (approximately 6 min on a single processor) and approximately 60 (approximately 4 min on a single processor) for the 10 x 10 and 40 x 40 cm2 field sizes, respectively. BEAMnrc PHSP calculations with DBS alone or DBS in combination with charged particle range rejection were more efficient than the other efficiency enhancing techniques used. Using VMC++, accurate simulations of the entire linac treatment head were performed within minutes on a single processor. Noteworthy differences (+/- 1%-3%) in the mean energy, planar fluence, and angular and spectral distributions were observed with the NIST bremsstrahlung cross sections compared with those of Bethe-Heitler (BEAMnrc default bremsstrahlung cross section). However, MC calculated dose distributions in water phantoms (using combinations of VRTs/AEITs and cross-section data) agreed within 2% of measurements. Furthermore, MC calculated dose distributions in a simulated water/air/water phantom, using NIST cross sections, were within 2% agreement with the BEAMnrc Bethe-Heitler default case.

Lessors' recovery risk management capability

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to verify recovery risk management capabilities by lessors. It tests several hypotheses and finds out interesting specific results for lessors.Design/methodology/approachThe approach is empirical: two different database of leasing contracts are analysed with econometric methodologies.FindingsThere is clear evidence that: lessors are ex ante able to balance the probability of default and the loss given default case by case, using proper contract structures; and they carefully manage recovery procedures and strategies according to operations' characteristics.Research limitations/implicationsThe data used are large enough, but come from institutions concentrated in Italy. Future research could be extended to other relevant countries.Practical implicationsResults presented are verified in leasing companies which made a limited use of rating systems and credit risk model: they have been achieved by the continuous improvements of traditional lending practices. The development of modern reliable systems can enhance risk management capabilities; our findings can help building more structured and advanced credit risk management tools.Originality/valueThe paper adds to the literature in the sense that gives clear evidence of a neglected but important fact of real world credit markets: financial intermediaries have the capability of properly assessing risk components and manage loss given default (LGD) in order to control overall credit risk.

On the parameterization of biological influences on offshore sand wave dynamics

The bed of the North Sea is covered by sand waves and houses a great number of macrobenthic animals. These bio-engineers are known to have a significant influence on the stability of the bed and thereby on the geomorphology of the seabed. This paper proposes a parameterization of these bio-geomorphological interactions. Given the abundance of three dominant bio-engineers on the Dutch Continental Shelf, the predicted occurrence of sand waves, in which the parameterization is included, shows significantly better results, compared to the prediction for the default case without biology. Therefore, the inclusion of biological activity could be important to predict the occurrence of sand waves.

Modeling bio-geomorphological influences for offshore sandwaves

The coastal environment shows a wide range of bed patterns, for which sandwaves and sandbanks are among the most common. Less known in this context is the high benthic diversity in the coastal environment, which gives rise to the question to what extend the benthos interacts with the shape of the seabed. This paper reviews field and flume experiments on bio-geomorphological influences between benthos and sediment and tests the hypothesis that both the occurrence and the dimensions of sandwaves are dependent on the benthic diversity in the North Sea. Mathematical inclusions to account for biological activity in idealized models reveal that biota is able to influence the wavelength of sandwaves significantly, compared to the default case. More importantly, the models indicate that biota is able to induce bed patterns under conditions when the physical parameters suggest a stable flat bed and vice versa. Present model explorations indicate that future research should focus on the parameterization of subtidal biological activity on sediment dynamics and thereby on seabed patterns. Such knowledge will enable process-based modeling of the spatial and temporal variation in biological activity on seabed morphodynamics and validate the proposed modeling approach with field measurements.

Prestige Case Forms and the Comp‐trace Effect

Abstract. Case in English is “dormant”—not valued or resolved in the syntax—unless it is “activated” by the EPP feature of T. Case‐activated DPs move to Spec,TP for Case valuation. Further extraction (e.g., wh‐movement) of subjects requires “phase‐early” Case resolution, guaranteeing that the uninterpretable Case feature of a subject is resolved early, in Spec,TP, in compliance with the Earliness Principle. An inability to resolve an active Case feature early results in the C‐t effect. The dormant “object” case form is determined at PF either by a rule of default case (accusative) or by one of a set of rules assigning a prestige (usually nominative) case. This system correctly predicts a variety of details of the C‐t effect and the possible occurrence and distribution of prestige case forms (It is I or between you and I ) where Case is dormant. The C‐t effect in Spanish, Russian, and Polish are also briefly considered.

Case variation in coordination: Danish vs. Faroese

<p class="NL-Abstract" style="margin: 0cm 14.2pt 12pt;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;" lang="EN-US">This paper is primarily concerned with inter- and intra-individually variable case-form mismatches inside coordinate determiner phrases (CoDPs). For English, the phenomenon is both socially salient </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;" lang="EN-US">(e.g., O'Conner & Kellerman 2009, among many others)</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;" lang="EN-US"> and well studied </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;" lang="EN-US">(Angermeyer & Singler 2003, Quinn 2005, Grano 2006, Parrott 2007: Ch. 6)</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;" lang="EN-US">. The most prominent theory of (default) case </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;" lang="EN-US">(Schütze 2001, incorporating Johannessen 1998)</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;" lang="EN-US"> explains English variation in CoDPs mostly with parameterized syntactic mechanisms. The parametric theory does not make clear cross-linguistic predictions, and accordingly there has been little cross-linguistic investigation of case variation in CoDPs. This paper therefore has two main purposes. The first is to argue for a theory of (default) case </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;" lang="EN-US">(Parrott 2007, 2009a, following Emonds 1986, and incorporating McFadden 2004, 2007)</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;" lang="EN-US"> within the Distributed Morphology (DM) framework </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;" lang="EN-US">(Halle & Marantz 1993, Embick & Noyer 2007)</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;" lang="EN-US">. In contrast with the parametric theory, the DM theory makes testable cross-linguistic predictions that, <em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">inter alia</em>, connect the (non) attestation of case mismatches in CoDPs with Germanic case typology. Thus, the paper’s second purpose is to present some results from investigations, utilizing diverse empirical methods, into case variation in CoDPs for Danish and Faroese. These results are consistent with predictions made by the DM theory.</span></span></span></p>

Icelandic Control Is Not A-Movement: The Case from Case

A rich literature on Icelandic syntax has established that infinitival complements of obligatory control verbs constitute a case assignment domain independent from the matrix clause, and in this differ systematically from all types of A-movement, which manifest case dependence/preservation. As Landau (2003) has observed, these facts provide significant counterevidence to the movement theory of control (Hornstein 1999 and subsequent work). Boeckx and Hornstein (2006a) attempt to defend this theory in light of data from Icelandic. We offer here a review of the relevant literature, and we show that Boeckx and Hornstein's reply fails on several counts. We further argue that contrary to their claims, PRO in Icelandic receives structural rather than default (nominative) case, leaving the movement theory with no account for the distinction between PRO and lexical subjects.

The development of finiteness from a lexical to a functional category

Finiteness in adult Dutch is expressed by use of formal means of morpho-syntax, i.e. with both inflectional morphology and word order (verb-second). These formal means are linked to a projection of the functional category FIN as in: FIN SpecFIN FIN FIN VP SpecVP VP At the initial stage of acquisition, there is no productive use of functional elements nor do learner languages have verb-second. This is due to the fact that initially learner languages are systems in which the functional category FIN is absent. Properties of validation and anchoring are expressed by lexical means: Expression of illocutionary force occurs with modal predicates, contextual anchoring is expressed with deictic elements. Instantiation of the functional projection FIN is caused by the acquisition of the auxiliary verb heb/heeft (have/has). As a functional category, AUX provides a position for functional elements to express modal or – in the default case – non-modal illocutionary force. With the instantiation of AUX, the initial, i.e. specifier position serves as a position for elements with topic function, i.e. for elements used to establish contextual anchoring of the utterance. The acquisition of AUX is the driving force in the development from the lexical to the functional stage. However, the acquisition of AUX does not come as a deus ex machina. Structures with AUX are learned for reasons of information processing. Utterances with an auxiliary are typically used as a topicalisation device. Due to the fact that structures with AUX are learned as a topicalisation device, it seems possible (1) to provide a functional explanation for why auxiliaries, inversion and subject pronouns are learned simultaneously and (2) to account for the fact that the acquisition process occurs similarly in both L1- and L2-learner languages.

Belief reports and pragmatic intrusion (the case of null appositives)

In this paper, I explore Bach's idea (Bach, 2000) that null appositives, intended as expanded qua-clauses, can resolve the puzzles of belief reports. These puzzles are crucial in understanding the semantics and pragmatics of belief reports and are presented in a section. I propose that Bach's strategy is not only a way of dealing with puzzles, but also an ideal way of dealing with belief reports. I argue that even simple unproblematic cases of belief reports are cases of pragmatic intrusion, involving null appositives, or to use the words of Bach, ‘qua-clauses’. The main difference between my pragmatic approach and the one by Salmon (1986) is that this author uses the notion of conversational implicature, whereas I use the notion of pragmatic intrusion and explicature. From my point of view, statements such as “John believes that Cicero is clever” and “John believes that Tully is clever” have got distinct truth-values. In other words, I claim that belief reports in the default case illuminate the hearer on the mental life of the believer, that includes specific modes of presentation of the referents talked about. Furthermore, while in the other pragmatic approaches, it is mysterious how a mode of presentation is assumed to be the main filter of the believer's mental life, here I provide an explanatory account in terms of relevance, cognitive effects, and processing efforts. The most important part of the paper is devoted to showing that null appositives are required, in the case of belief reports, to explain certain anaphoric effects, which would otherwise be mysterious. My examples show that null appositives are not necessitated at logical form, but only at the level of the explicature, in line with the standard assumptions by Carston and Recanati on pragmatic intrusion. I develop a potentially useful analysis of belief reports by exploiting syntactic and semantic considerations on presuppositional clitics in Romance.

Time in Navajo: Direct and Indirect Interpretation

This article discusses the temporal interpretation of Navajo sentences. Navajo has linguistic forms that give temporal information: future tense, past and future particles, and temporal adverbials. These forms are optional, so that many sentences contain no direct temporal information. In such cases, aspectual information gives pragmatic cues to the temporal location of the situation expressed. The key factor is boundedness: in the default case, unbounded situations are taken as present and bounded situations as past. Three pragmatic principles explain the inference from aspect to temporal location. The principles, which also hold for certain other languages, apply to verb words with overt aspectual viewpoints as well as to zero‐marked verb words.

The resilient dative and other remarkable cases in Scandinavian vernaculars

In this paper we look at the case systems in three Scandinavian vernaculars spoken in Sweden, viz. Elfdalian, Skelleftemål and Vätömål in relation to (i) problems concerning possible case systems and ways in which they can break down; (ii) earlier claims about case hierarchies; (iii) the interaction of case, number and definiteness in nominal paradigms. One type of system considered in the paper is based on the opposition between a default case (nominative/accusative) and a dative – an option excluded by previously suggested generalizations on possible case systems. Our data illustrate several different ways in which one and the same older four-member case system has been reduced, and our conclusion is that a strict hierarchy here cannot be established. The vernaculars studied are also relevant to the question of markedness relations in nominal paradigms: they give additional support to the claim that definite nouns may show more distinctions than indefinite ones, and counter to usual assumptions, singular nouns sometimes show fewer case distinctions than plural nouns, which may be explained by the uniform marking of the dative plural across all paradigms.

O Caso default no português do Brasil: revisitando o Caso dos inacusativos

The goal of this paper is to investigate the contexts in BrazilianPortuguese in which DPs are marked with nominative default Case,and to analyse the possibility of attributing default Case to the DPsin post-verbal position of sentences built with inaccusative verbs.The claim is that, if the verb shows agreement features, such DPswill check the nominative Case in the syntax; if the verb isuninflected for person and number, such DPs will receive a defaultCase marking in the morphological component.