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We examine the 2014 European Union economic sanctions on exports to Russia and the Russian retaliatory measures on imports from several Western countries. Using the universe of highly disaggregated international trade and taxation data for firms in the Netherlands, we systematically analyze the impact of these economic sanctions on Dutch firms' exports and foreign direct investment. Our analyses account for the product‐specific EU restrictions on arms, equipment used for oil exploration and extraction, and dual‐use products suitable for civilian and military use, as well as the Russian import ban on various primary commodities. Our empirical findings highlight the overall negative impact of sanctions on the intensive margin of exports. However, having a foreign affiliate in Russia helps to mitigate the otherwise negative impact of sanctions on the extensive margin of exports. We also show that exporters do not circumvent sanctions by setting up a local affiliate in Russia. In fact, exposure to Russian countersanctions may even force firms to close their Russian affiliates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flood risk quantification is a complex process involving a chain of models. The approach contains many uncertainties which accumulate in the calculated flood risk. Risk-based flood safety standards are therefore prone to large uncertainty. This study aims to quantify the uncertainty of risk-based flood safety standards for a Dutch riverine case study. Through a systematic approach using expert elicitation, the key uncertainty sources in the Dutch safety standard derivation are identified. Uncertainty magnitudes are quantified for five main sources of uncertainty, after which these uncertainties are propagated through the model chain in a scenario analysis to derive flood safety standards. The results show that the Dutch risk-based flood safety standards are highly uncertain given the relative uncertainty bandwidth of 70%. The flood safety standards are found to be most sensitive to damage function and evacuation uncertainty. Also, we show that the impact of uncertainty strongly depends on local characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aerosol particle number concentration measurements are a crucial part of aerosol research. Vertical profile measurements and high-altitude/low-pressure performance of the respective instruments become more important for remote sensing validation and a vital tool for the observation of climate variables. This study tests the new, commercially available water condensation particle counter (MAGIC 210-LP) for the deployment at aircraft cruising pressure levels that the European research infrastructure IAGOS (In-service Aircraft for a Global Observing System; http://www.iagos.org , last access: 2 May 2023) is aiming for by operating measurement instrumentation onboard passenger aircraft. We conducted laboratory experiments for conditions to simulate passenger aircraft flight altitude at operation pressure. We demonstrate that this type of water condensation particle counter shows excellent agreement with a butanol-based instrument used in parallel. A Faraday cup aerosol electrometer serves as the reference instrument. Experiments are performed with test aerosol ammonium sulfate and fresh combustion soot at pressure levels ranging from 700 to 200 hPa. For soluble particles like ammonium sulfate, the 50 % detection efficiency cut-off diameter (D50) is around 5 nm and does not differ significantly for all performed experiments. For non-soluble fresh soot particles, the D50 cut-off diameter of approximately 10 nm does not vary substantially as a function of pressure, whereas the 90 % detection efficiency cut-off diameter D90 increases from 19 nm at 700 hPa to 37 nm at 200 hPa. The overall counting efficiency for particles larger than 40 nm reaches 100 % for working pressures of 200 hPa and higher. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The working fluid of a condensation particle counter (CPC) is one of its essential characteristics. Butanol is commonly used as the working fluid in alcohol-based CPCs due to its proven performance for various applications and for a wide range of working conditions over the past almost 5 decades. At the same time, butanol has several disadvantages, including its strong and unpleasant odour, negative effects when inhaled over prolonged periods and flammability, making it troublesome to use in places with strict safety regulations. In this work, we propose addressing these negative issues by replacing butanol with dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), a substance that has not been used as a CPC working fluid to date. DMSO is an odourless, non-flammable and non-toxic substance that is easily accessible and inexpensive. During thorough experiments, this new substitute working fluid has proven to be stable with respect to its performance for CPCs and storage. We show that DMSO behaves in an equivalent manner to butanol when used to operate a CPC in terms of the instrument's counting efficiency, D50 cut-off diameter (the diameter at which 50 % of the particles are counted with respect to a reference) and concentration linearity. In addition, we have demonstrated this for operating pressures ranging from ambient pressure down to 200 hPa without the need for any safety precautions. Our new working fluid was tested on three CPC units representing two different models, almost always in side-by-side measurements. So far, we have achieved the best results with operating temperatures of 40 ∘ C for the CPC's saturator and 5 ∘ C for its condenser. To address a less desirable property of DMSO, it could be mixed with a slight amount of water to decrease its freezing point significantly. When mixed accordingly, the substance remains a liquid, even in work environments with temperatures ≤ - 10 ∘ C, without any impact on the CPC's counting efficiency performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aerosol particle number concentration measurements are a crucial part of aerosol research. Vertical profile measurements and high-altitude/low pressure performance of the respective instruments become more and more important for remote sensing validation and as a key tool for the observation of climate variables. This study tests the new, commercially available, water condensation particle counter (MAGIC 210-LP) for the deployment at aircraft cruising pressure levels, that the European research infrastructure IAGOS (In-service Aircraft for a Global Observing System) is aiming for by operating measurement instrumentation on board of passenger aircraft. We conducted a series of laboratory experiments for conditions, which simulate passenger aircraft flight altitude operations. We demonstrate that this model water condensation particle counter shows excellent agreement with a butanol-based instrument used in parallel, and a Faraday cup aerosol electrometer serving as the reference instrument. Experiments were performed with test aerosols ammonium sulphate, fresh combustion soot as well as ambient aerosol, at pressure levels ranging from 700 hPa down to 200 hPa. For soluble particles like ammonium sulphate, the 50 % detection efficiency cut-off diameter (D50) was 5 nm and did not differ significantly for all performed experiments. For non-soluble fresh soot particles, the D50 cut-off diameter did not differ significantly for particle sizes around 10 nm, whereas the D90 cut-off diameter increased from 17 nm at 700 hPa to 34 nm at 200 hPa. The overall counting efficiency for particles larger 30 nm reaches 100 % for working pressures 200 hPa and higher. Though we observed a drop of the counting efficiency from 100 % to 90 % for particles smaller than 15 nm, as soon as we reached a pressure of 250 hPa. For pressure conditions down to 200 hPa, the counting efficiency for particles smaller than 15 nm dropped further and reached 80 %. This feature, however, has only minor impact on the overall excellent performance of the instrument at all tested pressure conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]