Explore the vast range of titles available.

In this research we analyse the most important factors that determine housing prices. On the one hand, we test whether neighbourhoods with a good accessibility are more attractive and consequently show higher housing prices. For this purpose, we introduce an adapted Walk Score as part of the accessibility indicators. On the other hand, we compare an ordinary-least-squares regression (OLS) and a spatial lag model and test which model better explains residential housing prices. The regression models show the importance of classical factors such as dwelling characteristics or the types of neighbours. In addition, they also reveal that a differentiated approach is needed for analysing the accessibility, the location and the environment of a dwelling. The mere presence of a single amenity, a public transport stop or a motorway access is not a sufficient explanatory factor. Information such as density of supply, walking distances or public transport service quality needs to be taken into account as well as. The test of the spatial lag model reveals that prices of the most proximate dwellings can be taken into account as a relevant factor in explaining residential housing prices and should therefore be included in research on residential housing prices.

4 And while some critical attention has been given to Byron's attitude toward his Scottish identity in the poem, most critics maintain that Byron either rejects his Scottish roots altogether and becomes wholly English5 or they simply dismiss his satire as rash and immature, as Byron himself would later declare.6 In the poem, I suggest, Byron's sense of cultural as well as personal topography-his connections with both England and Scotland and English and Scottish literary traditions-are more complicated than have been previously acknowledged and mark the beginnings of the cosmopolitanism that he would later embrace in his life and verse.

Automated essay scoring can produce reliable scores that are highly correlated with human scores, but is limited in its evaluation of content and other higher-order aspects of writing. The increased use of automated essay scoring in high-stakes testing underscores the need for human scoring that is focused on higher-order aspects of writing. This study experimentally evaluated several alternative procedures for eliciting distinct human scores and improving their reliability. Essays written in response to the argument and issue tasks of the Analytical Writing measure of the GRE General Test were scored by experienced raters under different conditions. Criteria for evaluation included inter-rater agreement, agreement with machine scores, and cross-task reliability. First, the use of a modified scoring rubric that focused on higher-order writing skills increased the reliability for one type of task but decreased it for another. Second, scoring in batches of similar length essays did not have any effect on scores. Third, scoring with available automated essay scores increased reliability of human scores, but also increased their similarity with automated scores. Finally, the use of a more refined 18-point scoring scale significantly increased reliability. (Verlag).

Following George Gordon, Lord Byron across Britain, Europe, and the Eastern Mediterranean, \"Lord Byron and the Cosmopolitan Imagination, 1795–1824\" traces Byron's cosmopolitanism to its foundations in Greek Cynical philosophy and to its founder, Diogenes, Byron's self-confessed mentor. The Cynics are commonly regarded as the first cosmopolitans; yet the cosmopolitanism they practiced is quite different from the cosmopolitanism we value today. Instead of stressing a need for social progress and global interconnectedness, the Cynics chose to live outside of society, challenging its conventions and declaring themselves to be citizens of the cosmos. I argue that Byron followed Cynical ideas closely and, as a Cynical cosmopolitan, rejected the theories of cultural unity and social progress that had become popular during the Enlightenment. My first two chapters, which focus on Byron and Anglo-Scottish relations, chart the development of Byron's internationalism in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers and Hints from Horace, two early neoclassical satires rarely studied as cosmopolitan texts. The next two chapters, which focus on Byron's travels in Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean, explore the limits of universal cosmopolitanism in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Byron's first poem explicitly to adopt a Cynical philosophy. My last chapter focuses on Byron's later years when he internalized the principles of Cynical philosophy in Don Juan and The Age of Bronze. The conclusion brings the full scope of Byron's cosmopolitan into focus by examining the urbane rhetoric of the prose writings he prepared in defense of Alexander Pope in 1820 and 1821.

Films of metal halide perovskite are used as the absorber material in solar cells, and light irradiation during their formation is shown to affect their crystallization, morphology and photovoltaic performance. Illuminating solar-cell quality Solar cells that use hybrid organic–inorganic halide perovskites as the absorber material have been the fastest-improving devices in recent years in terms of power conversion efficiency. Several different methodologies have been developed to improve and control the quality of perovskite films to maximize device performance. Here, Michael Grätzel and colleagues show that light irradiation during the formation of perovskite films is an important consideration, and not just that light should be excluded as is commonly done. For two widely used fabrication techniques, they show that irradiation enhances film quality in one of them, but degrades it in the other. This is attributed to light-enhanced nucleation of perovskite crystals during film formation. Optimizing the morphology of metal halide perovskite films is an important way to improve the performance of solar cells 1 when these materials are used as light harvesters 2 , because film homogeneity is correlated with photovoltaic performance 3 . Many device architectures and processing techniques have been explored with the aim of achieving high-performance devices 4 , including single-step deposition 5 , sequential deposition 6 , 7 and anti-solvent methods 1 , 8 . Earlier studies have looked at the influence of reaction conditions on film quality 3 , such as the concentration of the reactants 9 , 10 and the reaction temperature 11 . However, the precise mechanism of the reaction and the main factors that govern it are poorly understood. The consequent lack of control is the main reason for the large variability observed in perovskite morphology and the related solar-cell performance 2 , 3 . Here we show that light has a strong influence on the rate of perovskite formation and on film morphology in both of the main deposition methods currently used: sequential deposition and the anti-solvent method. We study the reaction of a metal halide (lead iodide) with an organic compound (methylammonium iodide) using confocal laser scanning fluorescence microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. The lead iodide crystallizes before the intercalation of methylammonium iodide commences, producing the methylammonium lead iodide perovskite. We find that the formation of perovskite via such a sequential deposition is much accelerated by light. The influence of light on morphology is reflected in a doubling of solar-cell efficiency. Conversely, using the anti-solvent method to form methyl ammonium lead iodide perovskite in a single step from the same starting materials, we find that the best photovoltaic performance is obtained when films are produced in the dark. The discovery of light-activated crystallization not only identifies a previously unknown source of variability in opto-electronic properties, but also opens up new ways of tuning morphology and structuring perovskites for various applications.

BackgroundExacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are characterised by increased dyspnoea, reduced quality of life and muscle weakness. Re-exacerbation and hospital admission are common. Pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) administered after hospital admission for an exacerbation can improve quality of life and exercise capacity.ObjectiveTo determine whether outpatient post-exacerbation PR (PEPR) could reduce subsequent hospital admission episodes.MethodsPatients admitted to hospital for an exacerbation of COPD were randomised to receive either usual follow-up care (UC) or PEPR after discharge. Hospital admission and emergency department attendances for COPD exacerbations were recorded over a 3-month period and analysed on an intention-to-treat basis. Secondary outcomes included exercise capacity and quadriceps strength.Results60 patients underwent concealed randomisation at the time of their hospital discharge (UC: n=30, mean (SD) age 65 (10) years, forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1) 52 (22)% predicted; PEPR: n=30, 67(10) years, 52 (20)% predicted). The proportion of patients re-admitted to hospital with an exacerbation was 33% in the UC group compared with 7% in those receiving PEPR (OR 0.15, 95% CI 0.03 to 0.72, p=0.02). The proportion of patients that experienced an exacerbation resulting in an unplanned hospital attendance (either admission or review and discharge from the emergency department) was 57% in the UC group and 27% in those receiving PEPR (OR 0.28, 95% CI 0.10 to 0.82, p=0.02).ConclusionsPost-exacerbation rehabilitation in COPD can reduce re-exacerbation events that require admission or hospital attendance over a 3-month period.Clinical Trials Registration NumberNCT00557115.

Background Severe obesity causes respiratory morbidity and mortality. The impact of obesity on the mechanics of breathing is not fully understood. Patients and methods We undertook a comprehensive observational study of lung volumes and elasticity in nine obese and nine normal weight subjects, seated and supine, during spontaneous breathing. Seated and supine total lung capacity (TLC) and subdivisions were measured by multibreath helium dilution method. Using balloon catheters, oesophageal (Poes) and gastric (Pgas) pressures were recorded. Transpulmonary pressure (PL) was calculated as mouth pressure (Pmouth)-Poes, and complete expiratory PL volume curves were measured. Results The obese group had a body mass index (BMI) of 46.8 (17.2) kg/m2, and the normal group had a BMI of 23.2 (1.6) kg/m2 (p=0.001). Obese and normals were matched for age (p=0.233), gender (p=0.637) and height (p=0.094). The obese were more restricted than the normals (TLC 88.6 (16.9) vs 104.4 (12.3) %predicted, p=0.033; FEV1/FVC 79.6 (7.3) vs 82.5 (4.2) %, p=0.325), had dramatically reduced expiratory reserve volume (ERV 0.4 (0.4) vs 1.7 (0.6) L, p<0.001) and end-tidal functional residual capacity (FRC) was smaller (37.5 (6.9) vs 46.9 (4.6) %TLC, p=0.004) when seated, but was similar when supine (39.4 (7.7) vs 41.5 (4.3) %TLC, p=0.477). Gastric pressures at FRC were significantly elevated in the obese (seated 19.1 (4.7) vs 12.1 (6.2) cm H2O, p=0.015; supine 14.3 (5.7) vs 7.1 (2.6) cm H2O, p=0.003), as were end-expiratory oesophageal pressures at FRC (seated 5.2 (6.9) vs −2.0 (3.5) cm H2O, p=0.013; supine 14.0 (8.0) vs 5.4 (3.1) cm H2O, p=0.008). BMI correlated with end-expiratory gastric (seated R2=0.43, supine R2=0.66, p<0.01) and oesophageal pressures (seated R2=0.51, supine R2=0.62, p<0.01). Conclusions Obese subjects have markedly increased gastric and oesophageal pressures, both when upright and supine, causing dramatically reduced FRC and ERV, which increases work of breathing.

Hematite (α-Fe 2 O 3 ) is the most studied artificial oxygen-evolving photo-anode and yet its efficiency limitations and their origin remain unknown. A sub-picosecond reorganisation of the hematite structure has been proposed as the mechanism which dictates carrier lifetimes, energetics and the ultimate conversion yields. However, the importance of this reorganisation for actual device performance is unclear. Here we report an in situ observation of charge carrier self-localisation in a hematite device, and demonstrate that this process affects recombination losses in photoelectrochemical cells. We apply an ultrafast, device-based optical-control method to resolve the subpicosecond formation of small polarons and estimate their reorganisation energy to be ~0.5 eV. Coherent oscillations in the photocurrent signals indicate that polaron formation may be coupled to specific phonon modes (<100 cm −1 ). Our results bring together spectroscopic and device characterisation approaches to reveal new photophysics of broadly-studied hematite devices. The efficiency of Hematite (α-Fe 2 O 3 ) photo-anodes is thought to be limited by ultrafast lattice distortions or polarons. Here, we use an optical-control method with photocurrent detection to track small polarons in real time and demonstrate that they impact photoelectrochemical cell activity

Artificial photosynthesis, mimicking nature in its efforts to store solar energy, has received considerable attention from the research community. Most of these attempts target the production of H 2 as a fuel and our group recently demonstrated solar-to-hydrogen conversion at 12.3% efficiency. Here, in an effort to take this approach closer to real photosynthesis, which is based on the conversion of CO 2 , we demonstrate the efficient reduction of CO 2 to carbon monoxide driven solely by simulated sunlight using water as the electron source. Employing series-connected perovskite photovoltaics and high-performance catalyst electrodes, we reach a solar-to-CO efficiency exceeding 6.5%, which represents a new benchmark in sunlight-driven CO 2 conversion. Considering hydrogen as a secondary product, an efficiency exceeding 7% is observed. Furthermore, this study represents one of the first demonstrations of extended, stable operation of perovskite photovoltaics, whose large open-circuit voltage is shown to be particularly suited for this process. Artificial photosynthesis is a means of harnessing solar energy to generate fuels but has traditionally been exploited for the generation of hydrogen. Here, Schreier et al . instead employ a perovskite photovoltaic device to effect the solar conversion of CO 2 to CO with high efficiency.