Business School, Computing Department

This thesis analyses risk and profitability issues in the future British electricity industry through three different studies. The first study develops a novel and fully endogenous portfolio investment model for firms in a competitive electricity industry when they face uncertainties from fuel prices, demand levels, carbon price and renewable penetration. This study finds that both risk aversion and carbon price are crucial factors for investments in nuclear technology.
The second study analyses the impact of the cost of capital on optimal investments. Two distinct costs of capital of a project are considered: one in the pre-development and construction (pre-operation) phase and the other in the operation phase. The pre-operation cost of capital is based on the complex and capital-intensive nature of a project, which prevents potential investors from undertaking them under high costs – this is the first driving force for investment followed by the operation cost of capital. Operation cost of capital is based on a company’s ability to generate cash flows that cover debt requirements by varying the debt-equity ratio that a firm can attain. The greater the cash-flow risk, the lower is the level of debt that the firm can include in its financing, and hence, the higher the weighted average cost of capital, given that debt generally benefits from tax shield.
The third study analyses the profit risk of energy storage when it faces fuel-price risk. Specifically, it assesses the future electricity industry with different levels of renewable penetration and storage energy capacity. The study shows that energy storage profits depend on the electricity price risk when it makes profits from arbitrage and reserve provision and also shows that storage profit has a positive correlation with that of other generators, especially with profits of gas stations, and this correlation is moderated with the level of electricity demand.

The flexible operation of CO 2 injection wells presents significant challenges. To avoid premature degradation of wells or loss of integrity it is imperative to understand the feed flow patterns that future CO 2 transportation and storage networks will face. We use a unit commitment economic dispatch (UCED) model to study CCS operating regimes in low carbon energy systems scenarios that are characterised by high shares of weather dependent renewable power generation. Using the case study of Great Britain, we determine the extent to which flexible operation of CCS plants is required, resulting in variable CO 2 flows that need to be accommodated by future CO 2 transportation and storage networks. We find that around 21% and 12% of the net flow rate changes over 6hperiods in the core scenario have greater amplitudes than 30% and 50% of nominal flow, respectively. When changes are averaged over two consecutive blocks of 6 h, representing the smoothing effect achievable via linepacking over a pipeline of reasonable length and diameter, around 9% of the net changes have greater amplitudes than 40% of nominal flow. Given the high and frequent fluctuations in feed flows across all considered scenarios, further research is urgently required on the capability of transportation and storage networks to accommodate variable CO 2 flow rates. 1. Operation of a CCS power station(s) can be evaluated under a predefined pattern of prices (e.g. historical prices of electricity, fuel or carbon);

Generators’ investment decisions depend on the cost of capital but that cost of capital in its turn depends on how the generator’s plant mix affects the risk it faces. This paper models that interrelationship, specifically by varying the Debt/Equity ratio that a firm can attain while still meeting its financing covenants. These require a minimum interest cover ratio, both in an average year and in a year with relatively low profits. The greater the risk faced by the generator, the lower the level of debt that it will be able to include in its financing, and hence the higher the Weighted Average Cost of Capital, given that debt generally benefits from a tax shield.

This thesis analyses risk and profitability issues in the future British electricity industry through three different studies. The first study develops a novel and fully endogenous portfolio investment model for firms in a competitive electricity industry when they face uncertainties from fuel prices, demand levels, carbon price and renewable penetration. This study finds that both risk aversion and carbon price are crucial factors for investments in nuclear technology. The second study analyses the impact of the cost of capital on optimal investments. Two distinct costs of capital of a project are considered: one in the pre-development and construction (pre-operation) phase and the other in the operation phase. The pre-operation cost of capital is based on the complex and capital-intensive nature of a project, which prevents potential investors from undertaking them under high costs – this is the first driving force for investment followed by the operation cost of capital. Operatio...

Machine learning model development and optimisation can be a rather cumbersome and resource-intensive process. Custom models are often more difficult to build and deploy, and they require infrastructure and expertise which are often costly to acquire and maintain. Machine learning product development lifecycle must take into account the need to navigate the difficulties of developing and deploying machine learning models. evoML is an AI-powered tool that provides automated functionalities in machine learning model development, optimisation, and model code optimisation. Core functionalities of evoML include data cleaning, exploratory analysis, feature analysis and generation, model optimisation, model evaluation, model code optimisation, and model deployment. Additionally, a key feature of evoML is that it embeds code and model optimisation into the model development process, and includes multi-objective optimisation capabilities.

In the wake of high profile and recent events of blatant privacy violations, which also raise issues of democratic accountability as well as, at least potentially, undermining the legitimacy of current local and international governance arrangements, a rethinking of the justification of the right to privacy is proposed. In this paper, the case of the violation of the privacy of a bullied autistic youngster and the consequent prosecution of 3 Google executives will be discussed first. We will then analyse the arguments made by both academic experts and pundits who agree with Google’s claim that if the first sentence had been left unchallenged, it would have opened the floodgates to several other jurisdictions that would as a consequence have used it as a pretext to increase control on the internet, jeopardising in such a way free speech, which has been seen so far as an inalienable right which should not be censored. Finally, by going beyond the sentences and their immediate contexts, we will propose a theoretical justification of our analysis. Our main claim is that the value of the right to privacy is based on the argument that its violation would undermine citizens’ capacity to participate effectively in democratic politics.

This article aims to evaluate the contribution of Bentham’s ideas to the jurisprudential debate in view of their relevance vis a vis their contemporary reception. The focus is on Bentham’s revolutionary idea of publicity with its spill-over effects on contemporary debates on the rule of law and accountable and transparent governance. As far as the method is concerned, after having examined Bentham’s ideas on the rule of law and the debate they raised, the focus in the second section of this article is specifically on his conception of publicity. Some critical remarks then show that Bentham’s focus on publicity and transparency has been rightly interpreted in the contemporary debate as an important contribution. However, it is their justification that it is judged to be problematic. In fact, the assessment of the fundamental importance of publicity for the rule of law and transparent and accountable governance leads to a critical engagement with contemporary readings of Bentham’s scholarship, in primis that of Gerald Postema, with a development of the latter’s republican interpretation. The direction of travel that is proposed is towards a more liberal republicanism. The article not only shows how Bentham’s contribution should be revaluated in view of contemporary interpretations, but also proposes directions for further research developments according to which contemporary conceptions of regulation need to take a reflexive turn while aiming at legitimate legality at the same time.

This article focuses on the steering of higher education systems in the light of political science and public management approaches. It first recalls that an important part of the existing literature on higher education is focused on public policies in terms of reforms and decision-making, while the other part is dedicated to discovering and understanding the policy network or the policy regimes producing these policies. Both perspectives tend to look at higher education as a specific field. By contrast, the authors state that the transformations experienced in higher education are similar to those experienced by other key public services, an can be understood as a redefinition of the role of the nation state in the public generally. They therefore suggest to look at the steering patterns in higher education by investigating the underlying 'narratives' of public management reform and their variation or combination from one European nation state to another. Three main narratives of public services reform are discussed: the New Public Management (NPM), the Network governance and the Neo-Weberian narrative. For each narrative, the authors try to predict some 'signs and symptoms' that should be observed in higher education. Drawing on this reflection, the authors finally suggest further research perspectives which could be developed.

Na esteira dos recentes e importantes eventos de flagrantes violações da privacidade, é proposto um repensar da justificativa do direito à privacidade, pois tais violações levantam questões de responsabilidade democrática e, ao menos potencialmente, contribuem para corroer a legitimidade das atuais organizações de governança locais e internacionais. Neste artigo, discutir-se-á primeiramente o caso da violação da privacidade de um jovem autista intimidado (bullied) e o consequente julgamento de três executivos do Google. Depois, serão analisados os argumentos dos especialistas, acadêmicos ou não, que concordam com a afirmação do Google de que, se a primeira sentença não tivesse sido contestada, as comportas para várias outras jurisdições teriam sido abertas e, como consequência, serviriam como pretexto para aumentar o controle na internet, comprometendo a liberdade de expressão enquanto direito inalienável que não deveria ser censurado. Por fim, além das sentenças e dos seus contexto...

Higher Education Dynamics is a bookseries intending to study adaptation processes and their outcomes in higher education at all relevant levels. In addition it wants to examine the way interactions between these levels affect adaptation processes. It aims at applying general social science concepts and theories as well as testing theories in the fi eld of higher education research. It wants to do so in a manner that is of relevance to all those professionally involved in higher education, be it as ministers, policy-makers, politicians, institutional leaders or administrators, higher education researchers, members of the academic staff of universities and colleges, or students. It will include both mature and developing systems of higher education, covering public as well as private institutions.

The debate on the argumentative turn in Public Policy and Administration (PPA), as reflective of the influence of political-legal theory on the discipline, is reviewed with a thorough and indepth engagement with the Argumentation Theory (AT) literature. The focus in this article is in fact of a methodological nature, since we argue that critical scholars -who have contributed to the general and specialized (i.e. political discourse analysis and critical contextualism) literature of AT as well as politico-legal theory -pave the

We argue that legal argumentation, as the subject matter as well as a special subfield of Argumentation Studies (AS), has to be examined by making skilled use of the full panoply of tools such as argumentation and story schemes which are at the forefront of current work in AS. In reviewing the literature, we make explicit our own methodological choices (particularly regarding the place of normative deliberation in practical reasoning) and then illustrate the implications of such an approach through the analysis of a case study in the English law of evidence. We argue that a clear distinction must be drawn between practical argumentation and stories. Because of the institutional separation between legal judgment and fact-finding in common-law jury trials, we argue for the combination of argument and story-based analysis.