University of Luxembourg

About: University of Luxembourg is a education organization based out in Luxembourg, Luxembourg. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & European union. The organization has 4744 authors who have published 22175 publications receiving 381824 citations.

Critical evaluation of the European diesel car boom - global comparison, environmental effects and various national strategies

Abstract: On the way to a more sustainable society, transport needs to be urgently optimized regarding energy consumption and pollution control. While in earlier decades, Europe followed automobile technology leaps initiated in the USA, it has decoupled itself for 20 years by focusing research capacity towards the diesel powertrain. The resulting technology shift has led to some 45 million extra diesel cars in Europe. Its outcome in terms of health and environmental effects will be investigated below. Expected greenhouse gas savings initiated by the shift to diesel cars have been overestimated. Only about one tenth of overall energy efficiency improvements of passenger cars can be attributed to it. These minor savings are on the other hand overcompensated by a significant increase of supply chain CO2 emissions and extensive black carbon emissions of diesel cars without particulate filter. We conclude that the European diesel car boom did not cool down the atmosphere. Moreover, toxic NO x emissions of diesel cars have been underestimated up to 20-fold in officially announced data. The voluntary agreement signed in 1998 between the European Automobile industry and the European Commission envisaging to reduce CO2 emissions has been identified as elementary for the ensuing European diesel car boom. Four factors have been quantified in order to explain very different dieselization rates across Europe: impact of national car/supplier industry, ecological modernization, fuel tourism and corporatist political governance. By comparing the European diesel strategy to the Japanese petrol-hybrid avenue, it becomes clear that a different road would have both more effectively reduced CO2 emissions and pollutants. Europe's car fleets have been persistently transformed from being petrol-driven to diesel-driven over the last 20 years. This paper investigates on how this came to be and why Europe took a distinct route as compared to other parts of the world. It also attempts to evaluate the outcome of stated goals of this transformation which was primarily a robust reduction in GHG emissions. We conclude that global warming has been negatively affected, and air pollution has become alarming in many European locations. More progressive development scenarios could have prevented these outcomes.

Deformation Quantization Modules

Abstract: We study modules over stacks of deformation quantization algebroids on complex Poisson manifolds. We prove finiteness and duality theorems in the relative case and construct the Hochschild class of coherent modules. We prove that this class commutes with composition of kernels, a kind of Riemann-Roch theorem in the non-commutative setting. Finally we study holonomic modules on complex symplectic manifolds and we prove in particular a constructibility theorem.

Evidence-based recommendations for the development of obesity prevention programs targeted at preschool children.

Abstract: The ToyBox intervention was developed using an evidence-based approach, using the findings of four reviews. These reviews included three critical and narrative reviews of educational strategies and psychological approaches explaining young children's acquisition and formation of energy-balance related behaviours, and the management of these behaviours, and also a systematic review of behavioural models underpinning school-based interventions in preschool and school settings for the prevention of obesity in children aged 4-6 years. This paper summarises and translates the findings from these reviews into practical evidence based recommendations for researchers and policy-makers to consider when developing and implementing interventions for the prevention of overweight and obesity in young (aged 4-6 years) children. The recommendations focus on two behaviours, physical activity and sedentary behaviour, and healthy eating, and include general recommendations, intervention approaches, interventions content, and simple messages. The review also briefly examines the role that the commercial sector plays in hindering or facilitating attempts to create healthy food environments for children. This paper also recognises that childhood obesity is not an issue for the education sector alone; it needs to be tackled at a multi sectoral level, recognizing the particularly important role of local governments, nongovernment organizations and the media.

Optimal sensor placement for leak location in water distribution networks using genetic algorithms

Abstract: In this paper, a new approach for sensor placement in water distribution networks (WDN) is proposed. The sensor placement problem is formulated as an integer optimization problem. The optimization criterion consists in minimizing the number of non-isolable leaks according to the isolability criteria introduced. Because of the non-linear integer and large-scale nature of the resulting optimization problem, genetic algorithms (GA) are used as solution approach. To validate the results obtained, they are compared with exhaustive search methods with higher computational cost proving that GA allow to find near-optimal solutions with less computational load. The proposed sensor placement algorithm is combined with a projection-based isolation scheme. However, the proposed methodology does not depend on the isolation method chosen by the user and it could be easily adapted to any other isolation scheme. Experiments on a real network allow to evaluate the performance of such approach.