EPS Model Research Articles

Study on the Pathway of Energy Transition in Inner Mongolia under the "Dual Carbon" Goal

As an important strategic energy base in China, Inner Mongolia's energy exports are dominated by coal and electricity. Under the background of "double carbon" target, the energy transition of Inner Mongolia is of great significance to China’s energy security and carbon emission reduction. Based on the energy policy simulation model (EPS model), this paper explores the path of energy transition in Inner Mongolia by constructing the scenarios of developing renewable energy, developing CCS technology and carbon pricing, and simulating the policy situation based on the reality of Inner Mongolia and the energy transition experience of developed countries and regions. The results show that (1) The energy production and power generation under the development of renewable energy scenario (RE) and carbon pricing scenario (CP) are lower than the "Business as usual" scenario (BAU) for a certain period of time, which affects China's energy security. However, by 2060, power generation and energy production under both scenarios exceed the BAU scenario, and the energy production structure is dominated by renewable energy in both cases. (2) If the Inner Mongolia government focuses on short-term carbon emission reduction, the government should actively promote the establishment of a carbon emission trading market and increase the use of renewable energy through the improvement of the carbon pricing mechanism to promote carbon emission reduction in Inner Mongolia. If the Inner Mongolia government focuses on long-term energy supply stability, it should vigorously develop CCS technology.

Can Inner Mongolia Learn from Zhejiang’s Low-Carbon Policy?—Comparative Analysis Based on the EPS Model

Based on the energy policy simulation model (EPS model) and the reality of Zhejiang Province and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, the carbon pricing policy scenario and the early retirement policy scenario of coal power generation units were constructed, respectively, and the policy effects simulated. The study explored whether Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region can learn from the low-carbon policies that have played a good role in Zhejiang Province in the process of achieving a carbon peak. The research found that: (1) Under the baseline scenario, both Zhejiang Province and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region failed to achieve a carbon peak by 2030. (2) Under the scenarios of carbon pricing and early retirement of coal power generation units, the peak time of carbon in Zhejiang Province and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region has been advanced, which shows the effectiveness of carbon pricing and early retirement of coal power generation units. (3) The above two policies have achieved good results in the overall implementation process of Zhejiang Province, but the carbon pricing policy has caused dramatic fluctuations in the power generation in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and the early retirement policy of coal power units has failed to achieve the goal of reaching the peak carbon in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on schedule.

Comparison of fouling behaviors between activated sludge suspension in MBR and EPS model solutions: A new combined model

How to precisely describe the fouling behavior of activated sludge suspension in constant flux cross-flow filtration is a challenge. In this paper, a three-mechanism (standard pore blocking, complete pore blocking and cake filtration) model was established based on the classic blocking law to describe the fouling behavior of activated sludge suspension in the constant flux cross-flow filtration. The results showed that the predictions of the proposed model showed good agreements with experimental data not only for activated sludge suspension (R2≥0.994), but also for bovine serum albumin protein (BSA) (R2 ≥ 0.966), humic acid (HA) (R2 ≥ 0.940), sodium alginate (SA) (R2 ≥ 0.801) and kaolin (R2 ≥ 0.961). Meanwhile, for activated sludge suspension, the variation rate of the cake resistance increased with the filtration flux, and the steady available membrane area ratio (Asteady/A0) was independent on the filtration flux while it decreased with the increase of MLSS concentration. In addition, the available membrane area ratio (A(t)/A0) decreased slower for activated sludge suspension than that for single model solution (BSA, HA and SA) in the fouling process.

Strengthening the empowerment approach in social work practice: An EPS model

SummarySince the mid-1980s, social work has been recognised as an empowering profession. This article proposes that two more concepts, namely, participation and a strengths perspective, must be taken into account to strengthen and advance the empowerment approach. An integrated intervention model linking empowerment, participation and a strengths perspective, called the EPS model, is developed. Theoretical advances: Although the concepts of participation and strengths perspective have been mentioned separately in literature about the promotion of empowerment, discussion of the integration of all three concepts is limited. The EPS model goes some way to filling this theoretical and practice gap. It affirms that these three concepts are interrelated and must be closely interlinked. The model links the three concepts by proposing that practice should be based on a strengths perspective and use participation as the method to achieve the goal of empowering service users. The EPS model serves as a framework through which social workers can oversee the application and connection of the three concepts in practice.ApplicationsAs the EPS model incorporates the principles of the World Health Organization age-friendly cities initiative, it is suited to the implementation of a community project in Hong Kong aimed at enhancing the age-friendliness of the city’s transport system. This case study illustrates how the EPS model was applied and how the outcomes resulted in empowerment of the participants and realised benefits for older people in Hong Kong.

Ca 2+ -aided separation of polysaccharides and proteins by microfiltration: Implications for sludge processing

Excess sludge produced by wastewater treatment plants contains extracellular polymeric substances (EPSs; 10–40 dry wt%) that mainly comprise polysaccharides and proteins and can be used as bioflocculants, adsorbents for heavy metal ions, and soil conditioners. Herein, we investigated the separation of EPS constituents using unstirred and stirred dead-end microfiltration in the presence of Ca2+, with an aqueous solution of sodium alginate (SA) and bovine serum albumin (BSA) employed as an EPS model. Acceptable separation efficiencies were obtained utilizing filter papers with micropores of various sizes, which retained calcium alginate aggregates formed due to the SA-Ca2+ interaction but allowed BSA to be filtered out. Notably, a certain minimal Ca2+ concentration was required to achieve the above separation, with the separation efficiency being independent of the SA:BSA concentration ratio at Ca2+ concentrations exceeding the threshold value. The filtration resistance decreased with increasing pore size, Ca2+ concentration, and BSA content. Rather unexpectedly, variation of filtration surface shear could not be used to improve the filtration separation efficiency and reduce fouling in spite of the revolution rate, since the disturbing flow forced the aggregates into the filter pores. The polysaccharide in the EPSs was separated effectively by microfiltration with the addition of Ca2+. Thus, the obtained results provide further insight into the microfiltration-aided separation and recovery of polysaccharides and proteins in EPSs.

EPS社工介入模式

本文主要介紹筆者始創的一個名為EPS的社工介入模式。這個介入模式主要是運用充權(Empowerment)、參與(Participation)和強項角度(Strengths Perspective)三個概念去推行社工的介入方法。本文首先介紹這個模式的三個基本信念，包括：(一) 社會工作的重要目標是去幫助服務對象達致充權；(二) 透過參與才能讓服務對象獲得充權；及(三) 極度相信服務對象有能力及有強項。本文分別闡述充權的概念和作用，分析為何要促進服務對象的參與，剖析達致有意義及高度參與的方法，以及檢視強項角度的信念和重要性。EPS模式認為，社工實踐中一定要將這三個概念 (E、P、S) 緊扣在一起，才能達到社工的理想目標。無論在哪個服務範疇，社工都應該以強項角度去看事物，鼓勵服務對象的參與，從而令他們得到充權。充權是要達到的目標，參與是一個方法，而強項是一個重要的基礎。目標，方法，基礎三樣缺一不可。這個模式指出社工介入的核心元素是採用強項角度去運用參與以達致充權作用。本文最後探討若忽略這三個重要概念或其中一個，社工的介入會出現甚麼問題，並剖析三個概念的互動如何促進社工介入的成效，以及介紹EPS模式在不同領域的應用。 This article introduces a social work intervention model which is called EPS Model and is newly developed by the author. The EPS Model is to apply the following three concepts in social work practice, including Empowerment (E), Participation (P) and Strengths Perspective (S).The article firstly presents the three basic beliefs of the model: (1) the main goal of social work practice is not just to provide services and help people solve problems, but to help people empower themselves; (2) the empowerment goal can be actualized through promoting service user participation and (3) we have to strongly believe that people have strengths and abilities. The article then introduces the concept of empowerment and its functions, discusses why service user participation should be promoted and the effective means of promoting meaningful and greater participation, and examines the faith and importance in strengths perspective. The main characteristics of the EPS Model is to affirm that these three concepts (E, P and S) are inter-related and need to be closely inter-linked. Empowerment should be regarded as the aim of social work practice. Participation is the effective means to achieve empowerment. Strengths perspective is thus regarded as the important basis for social work intervention. The aim, the means and the basis are equally important and neither one can be excluded. This model suggests that social work practice should be based on the strengths perspective and should make use of participation to achieve service users' empowerment. The article finally examines the problems arising from the neglect of any one of the three important concepts, the impact of the interplay of the three concepts on the effect of social work practice and the application of the EPS Model in different service settings.

Convertible Lump Sum EPS Contracting Model – How to Get the Plant you Need Now and Still Enjoy in 20 Years?

In most instances process plants are designed to meet performance objectives that are clearly defined by a detailed technical specification. The contractors and licensors designing and building such process plants are quite proficient at designing a plant to meet those performance values for an economically attractive cost. However the reality for the owner and operator of the plant is that over the 40+ year lifetime of the plant the inlet feeds, production rate and operationally desired set points for each piece of equipment will change. Often times this can result in a non-optimal plant and performance problems or poor reliability. This fact is particularly severe for plants which undergo significant corrosion or fouling like that commonly seen in sulphuric acid plants. Plants are built to make money for their owners. The primary way to make the most money out of a facility is to have the plant operational at as high of a capacity as possible for the maximum number of days in the operational life of the plant. There are numerous ways that the plant designer and builder can place design allowances, safety factors, built in redundancy, optional operational configurations, bypasses and other tricks to allow the facility to operate well for all desired production rates and all desired feed types. The costs of such options are often quite small if dealt with in the initial design phase. Unfortunately, in nearly all instances this optimal facility is not the facility that is built for the client. The reason why is often the inflexibility in the client/designer contractual relationship prevents open discussions on optimization. The Convertible Lump Sum EPS model can be used to get the optimal plant design for the client's present and future needs as well as providing price surety of a lump sum execution.This paper will detail the aspects of the Convertible Lump Sum EPS model. It will use an example sulphuric acid plant project to show how the client can be involved in the decision making process to get the best plant design for their site with appropriate design factors and options. Instances will be illustrated where plants have been built that do not have the flexibility required to operate effectively as the plant ages and/or the plant slightly changes operational modes. This lack of flexibility often causes damage to the plant and operational downtime or reduced capacity. Cost/Benefit analyses will be done on each of these cases. This paper will show that use of an effective, technically and commercially transparent contracting model with the appropriate partner can allow significant savings in TIC cost as well as for total return on investment.

Fabrication of 3D surface model with environmental materials for architectural modeling by hot cutting system

With the development of the society, green and sustainable manufacturing becomes an important issue. Also, the need for architectural modeling’s diversity becomes more urgent. To ensure environmental protection and low cost, the five-axis hot cutting system independently designed and developed by the authors is applied to the processing of EPS model. During the fabricating process, there is an interference problem between molybdenum wire and the blank. To solve this problem, the optimized algorithm is proposed in this paper. As to equipments, advanced servo motors are used to replace the existing stepper motors to ensure effective and accurate fabrication. The research is mainly composed of four parts: first, analyzing the local topological relationship with algorithm of grouping matrix; second, obtaining section contours by defining a group of discriminant conditions and outside normal vectors; third, acquiring all the cutting paths by summing every section contour in the same direction; and finally, fabricating the 3D model by using the algorithm researched. The experimental results show that EPS can be efficiently applied to fabricate architectural model with the algorithm we proposed.

Market Belief Risk and the Cross-Section of Stock Returns

This paper studies the eff ect of market belief risk on the cross-section of stock returns. Using actual and analyst EPS forecast data, we construct the market belief as the cross-sectional average of individual beliefs for all sample stocks, with individual belief de fined as the mean analyst EPS forecast minus the one derived from the Brown and Roze (1979) EPS model. We observe that a portfolio that is long in stocks with the highest sensitivities and short in stocks with the lowest sensitivities to innovations in market belief earns an average yearly return of 5.4%. This positive relationship between market belief risk and stock returns persists after accounting for traditional risk factors and is particularly strong for large-cap stocks. These findings are robust when considering alternative speci cations of market belief risk. Finally, we fi nd that stocks' exposure to market belief risk increases with their market beta, volatility, turnover rate, and their sale-to-asset ratio and decreases with their size, momentum, and analyst coverage.

Description and initial evaluation of an educational and psychosocial support model for adults with congenitally malformed hearts

Objective Various programmes for adults with congenitally malformed hearts have been developed, but detailed descriptions of content, rationale and goals are often missing. The aim of this study was to describe and make an initial evaluation of a follow-up model for adults with congenitally malformed hearts, focusing on education and psychosocial support by a multidisciplinary team (EPS). Methods The model is described in steps and evaluated with regards to perceptions of knowledge, anxiety and satisfaction. Results The EPS model included a policlinic visit to the physician/nurse (medical consultation, computer-based and individual education face-to-face as well as psychosocial support) and a 1-month telephone follow-up. Fifty-five adults (mean age 34, 29 women) with the nine most common forms of congenitally malformed hearts participated in the EPS model as well as the 3-months follow-up. Knowledge about congenital heart malformation had increased in 40% of the participants at the 3-months follow-up. Conclusion This study describes and evaluates a model that combines a multidisciplinary approach and computer-based education for follow-up of adults with congenitally malformed hearts. The EPS model was found to increase self-estimated knowledge, but further evaluations need to be conducted to prove patient-centred outcomes over time. Practice implications The model is now ready to be implemented in adults with congenitally malformed hearts.

THE HALO MERGER RATE IN THE MILLENNIUM SIMULATION AND IMPLICATIONS FOR OBSERVED GALAXY MERGER FRACTIONS

We developed a new method to extract halo merger rates from the Millennium Simulation. First, by removing superfluous mergers that are artifacts of the FOF halo finder, we find a lower merger rate compared to previous work. The reductions are more significant at lower redshifts, lower halo masses, and minor mergers. Our approach agrees better with predictions from the EPS model. Second, we find that the FOF halo finder overestimates the halo mass by up to 50% for halos that are about to merge, which leads to an additional ~20% overestimate of the merger rate. Therefore, we define halo masses by including only gravitationally bound particles. We provide new best-fitting parameters for a global formula to account for these improvements. In addition, we extract the merger rate per progenitor halo, as well as per descendant halo. The former is the quantity that is related to observed galaxy merger fractions when they are measured via pair counting. At low mass/redshift the merger rate increases with mass and redshift. At high mass/redshift (for halos with masses a few times the "knee" of the mass function) these trends break down, and the merger rate per progenitor halo decreases with mass and increases only moderately with redshift. Defining the merger rate per progenitor halo also allows us to quantify the rate at which halos are being accreted onto larger halos. We provide an analytic formula to convert given merger rates per descendant halo into merger rates per progenitor halo. Finally, we perform a comparison between observed merger fractions and the fraction of halos that have undergone a major merger during the recent dynamical friction time, and find a fair agreement, within the large uncertainties of the observations. Our new halo merger trees are available at http://www.mpe.mpg.de/ir/MillenniumMergerTrees/.

Quantitative Results of Eps Model Calibrations With a Comparison to industry guidelines

In the US regulatory climate of renewed focus on water quality in the distribution system, the role of modeling has become increasingly important. The authors review the current state of model calibration guidelines in the United States and compare US practices with calibration and model development in the United Kingdom. This research also provides for the first time statistical calibration accuracies for several extended period simulation (EPS) water distribution models. Seven case models were developed and calibrated using only trial‐and‐ error methods (iterative calibration). The authors demonstrate what is required to achieve a calibrated water distribution system model and provide a benchmark for calibration accuracies for models used in long‐term planning. Utilities can use this information as a guide to evaluate calibration accuracies of their own models. The benefit of improved calibration accuracies must be weighed against the costs of obtaining additional and more‐precise field data and the expense of efforts to improve model calibration accuracies.

Experimental verification of the deformed cylinder scattering model and its application for the calculation of backscattering from fish

The dorsal aspect target strength pattern of straight cylinders made of polystyrene (EPS) are measured and compared with the deformed cylinder scattering model (DCM) proposed by Ye [Zhen Ye, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 102, 877–884 (1997)] in the range of the tilt angle from −50° to 50°. Both experiments and the theory agreed very well for the wide range of tilt angle. The deformed cylinder model is also applied to predict the target strength pattern of Ayu (Plecoglossus altivelis) which is a river fish with an open swimbladder. The dorsal target strength of Ayu is measured by keeping it in alive condition. Then its swimbladder’s shape is observed using a soft x-ray system and digitized. Digitized data is used for the calculation on the basis of the deformed cylinder model and also the shape of the swimbladder is reproduced carving a rectangular solid of EPS by hand. The measured TS pattern of alive Ayu, the physical EPS model of swimbladder, and the DCM calculation agreed very well. Expanded polystyrene is a useful material to verify the scattering theory of the gas model and can become an artificial fish model with a swimbladder. Scattering from a complicated shape as a fish is predictable using DCM.

Eva®*: An integrated financial management system**

AbstractBoth the rise of hostile takeovers and the phenomenal success of LBOs in the 1980s can be explained in part as capital market responses to the shortcomings of the top‐down, EPS‐based model of financial management that has long dominated corporate America. the EVA financial management system, which presents the 1990s most serious challenge to the dominance of the EPS model, borrows important aspects from the LBO movement, particularly its focus on capital efficiency and ownership incentives. Unlike the LBO movement, however, the EVA system accomplishes such goals without the high leverage and concentration of risk that limit LBOs to the mature sector of the US economy.

THE EVA® FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

In this article, we argue that for many large companies the tops-down, earnings per share-based model of financial management that has long dominated corporate American is becoming obsolete. The most serious challenge to the long reign of EPS is coming from a measure of corporate performance called economic value added, or EVA. EVA is by no means a new concept. Rather it is a practical, and highly flexible, refinement of economists' concept of residual income--the value that is left over after a company's stockholders (and all other important stakeholders) have been adequately compensated. For companies that aim to increase their competitiveness by decentralizing, EVA is likely to be the most sensible basis for evaluating and rewarding the periodic performance of empowered line people, especially those entrusted with major capital spending decisions. EVA, moreover, is not just a performance measure. When fully implemented, it is the centerpiece of an integrated financial management system that encompasses the full range of corporate financial decision-making--everything from capital budgeting, acquisition pricing, and the setting of corporate goals to shareholder communication and management incentive compensation. By putting all financial and operating functions on the same basis, an EVA system effectively provides a common language for employees across all corporate functions, linking strategic planning with the operating divisions, and the corporate treasury staff with investor relations and human resources. We begin by describing the shortcomings of the tops-down, EPS-based model of financial management. Next we explain the rise of hostile takeovers--as well as the phenomenal success of LBOs--in the 1980s as capital market responses to the deficiencies of the EPS model. The EVA financial management system, we go on to argue, borrows important aspects of the LBO movement--particularly, its focus on capital efficiency and ownership incentives--but without the high leverage and concentration of risk that limit LBOs to the mature sector of the U.S. economy. In the final section, we present the outlines of an EVA-based incentive compensation plan that is designated to simulate for managers and employees the rewards of ownership.