Eric Chu

Bio: Eric Chu is an academic researcher from University of California, Davis. The author has contributed to research in topics: Urban planning & Urban climate. The author has an hindex of 31, co-authored 96 publications receiving 19139 citations. Previous affiliations of Eric Chu include Monash University & National Tsing Hua University.

Between Policies, Programs, and Projects: How Local Actors Steer Domestic Urban Climate Adaptation Finance in India

Abstract: In light of the slow progress in mobilizing international finance for climate adaptation in developing countries, a growing body of research promotes the idea of pooling blended forms of climate finance to leverage limited financial flows and enhance domestic control over allocation and accountability. Yet the constraints imposed by weaknesses in existing urban public finance institutions complicates perspectives on climate finance that envision the smooth pooling of blended finance from multiple sources across multiple scales. This chapter presents the case of Surat in India to illustrate how city governments can sustain an innovative approach to local climate adaptation while switching between various sources of funding. In this chapter, we ask two research questions: How do local governments that wish to pursue climate adaptation, often outside a comprehensive planning framework, steer these efforts around the numerous institutional, operational, and political constraints at the local level? Second, when the pursuit of climate adaptation is supported by time-bound external funding sources, how do local governments sustain action while switching between different types of financial flows? In the case of Surat, we find that the city is beginning to intentionally draw on intergovernmental fiscal transfers and, increasingly, their own local revenue resources. Such an implementation pathway emerges from the local government’s ability to innovatively identify specific adaptation and development co-benefits and to exploit this with projects funded by existing and forthcoming streams of public revenue. Surat’s experience suggests that, in contrast to pooling, cities will have to strategically steer climate adaptation action around local fiscal constraints created by the different governance logics associated with policies, programs, and projects.

Moving horizon estimation for staged QP problems

Abstract: This paper considers moving horizon estimation (MHE) approach to solution of staged quadratic programming (QP) problems Using an insight into the constrained solution structure for the growing horizon, we develop a very accurate iterative update of the arrival cost in the MHE solution The update uses a quadratic approximation of the arrival cost and information about the previously active or inactive constraints In the absence of constraints, the update is the familiar Kalman filter in information form In the presence of the constraints, the update requires solving a sequence of linear systems with varying size The proposed MHE update provides very good performance in numerical examples This includes problems with l 1 regularization where optimal estimation allows us to perform online segmentation of streaming data

An Efficient Real-Time Disk-Scheduling Framework with Adaptive Quality Guarantee

Abstract: A multimedia server requires a real-time disk-scheduling algorithm to deliver isochronous data for real-time streams. Traditional disk-scheduling algorithms focus on providing good quality in a best effort manner. In this paper, we propose a novel real-time disk-scheduling algorithm called WRR-SCAN (weighted-round-robin-SCAN) to provide quality guarantees for all in-service streams encoded at variable bit rates and bounded response times for aperiodic jobs. WRR-SCAN divides a real-time stream into guaranteed jobs and optional jobs. The admission control admits a stream as long as its guaranteed jobs are satisfied. Such a decision is made in 0(1) time as WRR-SCAN reserves a fixed weight for each stream. WRR-SCAN incorporates an aggressive policy to dynamically reclaim unused bandwidth during runtime. The reclaimed bandwidth is used to serve optional jobs or more aperiodic jobs. We conducted a set of simulations to compare WRR-SCAN with a set of referred disk-scheduling algorithms. The evaluations are conducted on a commonly used disk simulator with traces from a real multimedia server. The experimental results show that WRR-SCAN provides significantly better quality for real-time streams and yields considerably shorter response times for aperiodic jobs.

The Production of Space

Abstract: ‘The Production of Space’, in: Frans Jacobi, Imagine, Space Poetry, Copenhagen, 1996, unpaginated.