Non-additionality, Overestimation of Supply, and Double Counting in Offset Programs: Insight for the Mexican Carbon Market

Mexico utilizes an emissions trading system as one of its carbon pricing instruments. Mexico’s planning, like that of other countries, includes flexible mechanisms such as offsets. Offsets allow market participants to compensate for their emissions through mitigation projects. Offsetting via participation in the Clean Development Mechanism and Joint Implementation was fundamental to the Kyoto Protocol. In contrast, the Paris Agreement is ambiguous about its use. Other national or regional offset programs, such as the EU, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, or Korea, work within emission trading systems. Subnationally, the California-Quebec program has been in effect since 2014. As Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) are global, offsetting allows market participants to compensate for their emissions through mitigation projects, whether domestically or abroad. Given their global scope, such programs present a wide variability in quality. This chapter presents an overview of offset programs worldwide and argues that non-additionality, overestimated supply, and double counting are their three most pressing quality problems. This analysis sheds light upon the nascent Mexican system and its offset program.

Flexible Mechanisms for Remote Attestation

Remote attestation consists of generating evidence of a system’s integrity via measurements and reporting the evidence to a remote party for appraisal in a form that can be trusted. The parties that exchange information must agree on formats and protocols. We assert there is a large variety of patterns of interactions among appraisers and attesters of interest. Therefore, it is important to standardize on flexible mechanisms for remote attestation. We make our case by describing scenarios that require the exchange of evidence among multiple parties using a variety of message passing patterns. We show cases in which changes in the order of evidence collection result in important differences to what can be inferred by an appraiser. We argue that adding the ability to negotiate the appropriate kind of attestation allows for remote attestations that better adapt to a dynamically changing environment. Finally, we suggest a language-based solution to taming the complexity of specifying and negotiating attestation procedures.

Path Analysis for Hybrid Rigid–Flexible Mechanisms

Hybrid rigid–flexible mechanisms are a type of compliant mechanism that combines rigid and flexible elements, being that their mobility is due to rigid-body joints and the relative flexibility of bendable rods. Two of the modeling methods of flexible rods are the Cosserat rod model and its simplification, the Kirchhoff rod model. Both of them present a system of differential equations that must be solved in conjunction with the boundary constraints of the rod, leading to a boundary value problem (BVP). In this work, two methods to solve this BVP are applied to analyze the influence of external loads in the movement of hybrid compliant mechanisms. First, a shooting method (SM) is used to integrate directly the shape of the flexible rod and the forces that appear in it. Then, an integration with elliptic integrals (EI) is carried out to solve the workspace of the compliant element, considering its buckling mode. Applying both methods, an algorithm that obtains the locus of all possible trajectories of the mechanism’s coupler point, and detects the buckling mode change, is developed. This algorithm also allows calculating all possible circuits of the mechanism. Thus, the performance of this method within the path analysis of mechanisms is demonstrated.

Regulating the health workforce in Europe: implications of the COVID-19 pandemic

In the European free movement zone, various mechanisms aim to harmonize how the competence of physicians and nurses is developed and maintained to facilitate the cross-country movement of professionals. This commentary addresses these mechanisms and discusses their implications during the COVID-19 pandemic, drawing lessons for future policy. It argues that EU-wide regulatory mechanisms should be reviewed to ensure that they provide an adequate foundation for determining competence and enabling health workforce flexibility during health system shocks. Currently, EU regulation focuses on the automatic recognition of the primary education of physicians and nurses. New, flexible mechanisms should be developed for specializations, such as intensive or emergency care. Documenting new skills, such as the ones acquired during rapid training in the pandemic, in a manner that is comparable across countries should be explored, both for usual practice and in light of outbreak preparedness. Initiatives to strengthen continuing education and professional development should be supported further. Funding under the EU4Health programme should be dedicated to this endeavour, along with revisiting the scope of necessary skills following the experience of COVID-19. Mechanisms for cross-country sharing of information on violations of good practice standards should be maintained and strengthened to enable agile reactions when the need for professional mobility becomes urgent.

Neural networks based on the 1С:enterprise 8.3 platform in data analysis systems for self-driving cars

The development of self-driving cars in the modern world is accelerating every year, and it is obvious that the safe movement of such cars is impossible without special fault-tolerant software tools. With the improvement of technology, such software tools increasingly include elements of artificial intelligence. Currently, on the basis of flexible mechanisms of the 1C:Enterprise 8.3 platform, an application solution is being developed that allows to analyze the behavior of an self-driving car on a public road. Such software can be used in the educational activities of students in areas related to mathematical statistics, as well as to study mathematical methods that optimize the operation of the on-board computer of a driving self-driving car. Considering the growth of educational programs, which include the study of applied solutions and the development of such solutions on the 1C:Enterprise 8.3 platform, the use of the software in question in the educational process is available to students, useful and interesting for them. The presence of a large number of reports using the data layout system will allow to analyze the movement of self-driving cars in precisely those sections that are necessary for a student or researcher to conduct research activities.

Nonlinear Control of Multibody Flexible Mechanisms: A Model-Free Approach

In this paper a novel nonlinear controller for position and vibration control of flexible-link mechanisms is introduced. The proposed control strategy is model-free and does not require the measurement of the elastic deformation of the mechanism, since the control relies only on the knowledge of the angular position of the actuator and on its time derivative, which can be measured simply with a quadrature encoder. The conditions for the closed-loop stability are evaluated using Lyapunov theory. The performance of the proposed technique is evaluated on a four-bar flexible-link mechanism. Superior vibration damping and more accurate trajectory tracking is obtained in comparison with a PD controller and a fractional order controller, which relies on the same set of measurement as the proposed nonlinear controller.

Strategy of Managing International Environment Aid Sustainability in Post-Reform Indonesia

Climate change and environmental degradation are several of the biggest contributing threats to business and economic sustainability, given the vulnerability of Indonesia’s geography and financial architecture. The financial crisis on the West has brought opportunities for Indonesia to pursue another source of assistance with less political intentions and loose concessional economic reforms. The Paris Agreement in 2015 also offers flexible mechanisms for developing countries to meet its target. DAC countries are known to contribute support of poverty reduction and environment assistance, while most of non-DAC countries build its core assistance in infrastructure development programs. However, other non-DAC countries demonstrate significant growth in environmental aid, as well as its capacity of delivery. This paper will establish an analysis to balance Indonesian dependence of foreign assistance for environmental conservation between those two types of donor countries. Using international assistance approach, this study will try to establish an argument prior to policy input for above circumstances. The study finds that there are no coherence and communications among policies and stakeholders in terms of aid compatibility to national development programs, funding schemes, harmonization of policies, valid measurements of emission reduction commitments. Keywords: foreign aid, environment aid, Indonesia, development policy

Development and Implementation of the Innovative Component of Human Capital on the Basis of Improving the Motivational Mechanism in the Field of Labor

Strategic tasks for building the innovative economy in Ukraine require qualitatively new approaches to the development and use of the innovative component of human capital in Ukraine, reforming existing motivational mechanisms. Prospects for quality human development and competitiveness of Ukraine's economy are becoming increasingly dependent on innovation activity of workers in the field of labor. There is a practical need to find opportunities for development and use of the innovative component of human capital based on improving the motivational mechanisms of enterprises and organizations. Imperfection of motivational mechanisms at the enterprises of Ukraine slows down the processes of development and use of the innovative component of human capital. The unsolved parts of the outlined problem include insufficient study of the possibilities of motivational mechanisms to stimulate innovative activity of employees, it is necessary to prove the need to take into account the system of stimulation of regulated and creative (innovative) components of labor activity. The aim of the article is to develop scientific and practical recommendations for improving the motivational mechanism of development and use of the innovative component of human capital of enterprises, based on labor incentives, taking into account the regulated and creative (innovative) component of labor activity. The objective need for the development of the innovative component of human capital in the conditions of growing demand for innovations was substantiated. Scientific approaches to understanding the essence of the motivational mechanism in the field of labor taking into account the needs of the development of the innovative component of human capital were revealed. The author's version of the interpretation of the motivational mechanism for regulating the development and implementation of the innovative component of human capital in the field of labor was proposed. By means of modeling the authors proved the feasibility of priority stimulation of work with elements of creativity, which significantly affects the change in profitability of the enterprise. Taking into account the theoretical analysis and modeling, it was proposed to develop a structural and logical scheme of the motivational mechanism for regulating the development and implementation of the innovative component of human capital, which is based on the system of stimulating regulated and creative work. The advantages and new features of the proposed motivational mechanism is that it is based on the stimulation of labor, taking into account the regulated and creative (innovative) components of labor. Prospects for further research are related to the improvement of the system of incentives for innovative work and the development of flexible mechanisms for their regulation.