Methodological approach. Econometric estimation of total factor productivity (TFPQ) at firm level. Subsequent estimation of the causal effect of import competition on firm productivity using econometric techniques.
Methodological approach. The structure and crystallinity of the zeolites were determined by X-ray powder diffraction using a Bruker AXS D8 Advance diffractometer equipped with a graphite monochromator and a position sensitive detector Våntec-1 using CuKα radiation in Xxxxx–Xxxxxxxx geometry. Nitrogen adsorption/desorption isotherms were measured on a Micromeritics GEMINI II 2370 volumetric Surface Area Analyzer at -196 °C to determine surface area, pore volume and pore size distribution. Before the sorption measurements, all samples were degassed in a Micromeritics FlowPrep 060 instrument under helium at 300 °C (heating rate 10 °C/min) for 4 h. The specific surface area was evaluated by BET method using adsorption data in the range of a relative pressure from p/p0 = 0.05 to p/p0 = 0.25. The t-plot method was applied to determine the volume of micropores (Vmic). The adsorbed amount at relative pressure p/p0= 0.98 reflects the total adsorption capacity (Vtot). The concentration and the type of acid sites were determined by adsorption of acetonitrile as a probe molecule followed by FTIR spectroscopy (Nicolet 6700 FTIR with DTGS detector) using the self- supported wafer technique. Prior to adsorption of the probe molecule, self-supported wafers of zeolite samples were activated in-situ by overnight evacuation at temperature 450 °C. CD3CN adsorption proceeded at room temperature for 30 min at equilibrium pressure 5 Torr, followed by 30 min degassing at room temperature. To obtain quantitative analysis, the molar absorption coefficients for CD3CN adsorbed on Brønsted acid sites (ν(C≡N)-B at 2297 cm-1, ε(B) = 2.05 ± 0.1 cm μmol-1) and strong and weak Xxxxx acid sites (ν(C≡N)-L1 at 2325 cm-1 ν(CN)-L2 2310 cm-1, ε(L) = 3.6 ± 0.2 cm μmol-1) were used. Integral intensities of individual bands were used and spectra were normalized to the wafer thickness 10 mg cm-2. The Iso-Therm thermostat (e-Lab Services, Czech Republic) maintaining temperature of the sample with accuracy of ± 0.01 K was used for the measurement of carbon dioxide adsorption at temperatures from 273 K to 333 K. After argon adsorption measurement, adsorption isotherms of CO2 were subsequently recorded on the same sample at temperatures 273 K, 293 K, 313 K and 333 K. The exact temperature was determined using a platinum resistance thermometer. Zeolites were degassed before each measurement at 473 K (temperature ramp of 1 K min-1) under turbomolecular pump vacuum overnight.
Methodological approach. The neuGRID project is focused on setting up “a grid-based e-infrastructure for data archiving/communication and computationally intensive applications in the medical sciences”. The exploitation of the developed infrastructure for the exchange of imaging and clinical data has been assured by a focused dissemination strategy, ensuring effective collaboration both within the project and with communities external to it, and coordinating neuGRID with related projects and activities carried out in Europe and elsewhere. The dissemination strategy has as its main objectives: • To disseminate project results to the relevant scientific communities; • To raise awareness at the political and decision-making levels of the opportunities offered by neuGRID; • To spread within research-, academic- and clinical communities knowledge about the facilities and tools supplied by the infrastructure; • To assess the regulatory needs of the pharmaceutical industry for pre-competitive research and clinical trials including clinical trial registration, agreements that should be prepared and signed by potential industry users, IPR management, and regulations for data ownership, exchange, and analysis; to define the adaptations or expansions of the present infrastructure to host industry pre-competitive research and randomized clinical trials with clinical and imaging/biological surrogates; and to define a set of activities that should be carried out to make neuGRID compliant with industry needs; • To promote compatibility of neuGRID with related initiatives that are being carried out in North America, Japan, and Australia; • To promote integration into neuGRID of the most popular tools for brain image analyses to carry out high performance grid computing by international researchers on own or merged datasets; • To spread infrastructure aims and services to be exploited in the daily research and clinical practice; • To teach potential users how to use the implemented services through the provided GUI; • To teach research users how to take advantage by the high performance computing facilities. There are several possible channels for disseminating information and results about neuGRID. The selection of modalities and ways varies in relation to the communication targets. As detailed in the Dissemination and training plan, during all the 36 months of the project the dissemination activities have included: conferences, teleconferences, meetings, workshops, letters of intent, emails, art...
Methodological approach. The general SAFT framework is based on perturbation theory. Therefore, the total Helmholtz free energy is given as a sum of two contributions: the reference fluid Helmholtz free energy and the perturbed Helmholtz free energy. The reference fluid is usually taken as the hard-sphere fluid and the perturbed potential includes the dispersion interactions of the segments, the chain term due to the formation of chains of segments, and the association term due to the highly directional attractive interactions in associating compounds, such as water and alcohols. These interactions are sufficient to describe the thermodynamic properties of a large amount of compounds. Nevertheless, the ability to predict adsorption phenomenon crucially depends on the fluid-solid interaction, hence an extension of these equations of state is needed to account for this specific interaction. The fluid-solid interaction might be modeled as a square-well potential. This idealized interaction potential is illustrated in Figure 1. Figure 1 - Schematic representation of the square well potential. ε is the potential depth and λ is the potential width This means that, if the fluid particles are within a distance of 1 to λ (in reduced units) from the solid wall, they are adsorbed by the wall. The very nature of this phenomenon imposes an inhomogeneity in the system that challenges the true scope of classical thermodynamics. One possible way to treat this problem, yet using classical thermodynamics, is to consider the effect on the average energy of the system. Thus, even though one does not have access to a detailed description of the fluid structure close to the solid wall, one is able to calculate the resulting energy effect. Assuming pairwise additivity, one may write the average residual energy as: N E R u(x)g(x)d 2V
Methodological approach. Each of the technical Work Packages provided short summaries of the activities conducted. The details of the activities are discussed at length within the technical Deliverables, to which the interested Reader is referred to for further technical details. We provide below a sequential summary, which addresses: (1) state of the art; (2) a selection of major results accomplished during the ShaleXenvironmenT project; (3) identification of possible future directions; (4) a few suggested articles for further reading. This material could be developed, in the future, as a book.
Methodological approach. As indicated in the previous sections, the present deliverable refers to three field sites. The methodological approach followed for each site has been practically the same, although with some differences induced by their specific characteristics. The first step has been the collection of geological and hydrogeological data on a regional scale to design the site stratigraphy, identify the SA and its groundwater level. Data have been collected from scientific papers, available maps, and national databases. Subsequently, the analysis has been more focused on a local scale. More detailed information has been acquired from the people/companies responsible of the G-ER exploitation and/or the environmental quality monitoring of each field site, as enabled by the S4CE consortium. Whenever possible, measurements have been performed directly on site. According to the collected data, for each of three sites the Conceptual Circulation Model (CCM) and the Numerical Circulation Model (NCM) of the Groundwater (GW) have been realized. The level of details of the three models is different because of existing differences in terms of available and reliable datasets. Several simplifications have been performed especially for the Cornwall site, because of the lack of reliable data. More detailed information about models construction and characteristics is reported hereinafter. 3 Summary of activities and research findings
Methodological approach. In order to meet the objectives for the deliverable, comprehensive study is carried out through following steps: Collecting and analysing information from S4CE specific sites. Sites under the purview of sub-surface geo-energy operations are included and these are United Downs Deep Geothermal Power Project site at Cornwall, UK (hereafter referred to as Cornwall site in the report), St.Galler Stadtwerke site at St. Gallen, Switzerland (hereafter referred to as St. Gallen site in the report) and Carbfix CCUS site at Iceland (hereafter referred to as Carbfix site in the report). Collecting and analysing information from other relevant consortium partners in the project. Inputs are obtained from but not limited to Task 5.7 ‘Design of LCA-based software for environmental impact determination’ carried out by TWI, UK and UCL, UK and task 5.8 ‘Development of the Multi-Risk (MR) Analysis’ by UNISA, Italy. Extensive desktop study is carried out based on various standards and other relevant publications. Inputs from relevant journal publications are included in the report. The task made use of TWI library database and valuable inputs are derived from industrial members who are also the owners of TWI. The S4CE advisory board members contributed in years of technical expertise of which we have been made use of to develop this report. Various inputs have been sought and obtained from regulatory agencies and other relevant organizations such as the International Geothermal Organization and Environment agency, UK. The Covid-19 pandemic happened during the last year of the project. Even though the effects of Covid-19 are not mentioned for the scope of deliverables in Work package 8 (WP 8), an effort has been made to assess the impact of Covid-19 especially on the geothermal energy particularly focusing on the European context. This study is included as appropriate in the three deliverables of WP8 mentioned in the previous section.
Methodological approach. 1.6.5.1. The relevance of a systematic review and meta-analysis Previous research has been conducted to understand the association between depression, PTSD, or TBI and dementia in ageing US military veterans through a systematic or narrative review (Xxxxx & Xxxxx, 2014; Xxxxx et al, 2020; Xxxxxxxx et al, 2020; Xxxxxxxx et al, 2018; Xxxxxx et al, 2018; Xxxxxx et al, 2013; Xxx & Xxxx, 2021). However, findings from these reviews to understand the association per health risk factor were therefore inconclusive in military veterans. As there are limited systematic reviews and meta-analysis that have synthesised all the available evidence and compared the mental and physical ill-health and lifestyle-related risk factors (see section 1.5.1), this presents an opportunity for further exploration. Even though MCI and dementia are distinct health outcomes (Xxxxx et al, 2017; Xxxx et al, 2018), it is important to understand and compare how both health outcomes impact military veterans, considering some key questions when reflecting on the findings in this review. There is a scientific need to understand what health outcomes are more frequent in military veterans, if the health outcomes are influenced similarly or not by the listed risk factors (see section 1.5.1), and to compare the impact of MCI between military veterans and non-veterans. 6The War Pension Scheme (xxxxx://xxx.xxx.xx/guidance/war-pension-scheme-wps)
Methodological approach. We propose a method to infer the quality factor, which controls the anelastic attenuation during waves propagation from the source to the station, by analysing the peak-ground motion parameters. In what follows, we first report the results of a feasibility study and then the application of the proposed method to a real dataset of a geothermal drill site.
Methodological approach. Various shale gas basins are located across Europe. In contrast to the North American shale gas plays, European sedimentary basins have experienced more tectonically active basins throughout their geological history. This imposes a more complex structural environment of overprinting geological events that have affected the shale rocks under exploration. We identified the main shale gas plays and their depth under exploration or with exploration potential (Figure 1) and have researched each basin in publically available reports and publications to identify shale gas potential areas (Table 1). The temperature conditions we report for these areas are estimates for their depth range, using a continental a geothermal gradient of approximately 23°C/km with a surface temperature of 16°C. Similarly, for reservoir pressure we use a hydrostatic gradient of 0.433psi/foot (value taken from EIA), which converts to approximately 9.8 MPa/km. In addition, HB has provided in-house research and down-hole pressure – temperature measurements.
