Transport biofuels derived from biogenic material are used for substituting fossil fuels, thereby abating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Numerous competing conversion options exist to produce biofuels, with differing GHG emissions and costs. In this paper analysis and modelling of the long-term development of GHG abatement and relative GHG abatement cost competitiveness between crop-based biofuels in Germany is carried out. Presently dominant conventional biofuels and advanced liquid biofuels were found not to be competitive compared to the substantially higher yielding options available: sugar beet based ethanol for the short to medium term least-cost option and Substitute Natural Gas (SNG) for the medium to long term. The competitiveness of SNG was found to depend highly on the emissions development of the power mix. Silage maize based biomethane was found competitive on a land area basis, but not on an energetic basis. Due to land limitations as well as cost and GHG uncertainty, a stronger focus on the land use of crop-based biofuels should be laid in policy.

The log interpretation and evaluation of Chang 8 tight sandstone reservoir in Longdong West area, Ordos Basin, is facing great challenges due to the existence of low resistivity contrast oil pays. To better guide the exploration of oil resources in this area, the characteristics and control mechanism of low resistivity contrast oil pays were studied in this research. Firstly, according to the relative value of apparent resistivity increase rate of the target formation, the reservoir was divided into two types: low resistivity contrast oil pay (LRCP) and high resistivity oil pay (HRP). Then, the reservoir characteristics were studied by comparing and analyzing the experimental data, formation water data and logging data collected from the two reservoir types. On this basis, the control mechanism of LRCP was studied and summarized into reservoir micro factors and regional macro factors, respectively. It is found that the reservoir rock composition between LRCP and HRP is basically the same. Compared with HRP reservoir, the average porosity and permeability of LRCP reservoir are relatively better, but the pore structure is relatively poorer because of the high content of micro pores. When the filling pressure of crude oil is sufficient enough, the high oil saturation can be formed in LRCP reservoir. The high irreducible water saturation and high formation water salinity are the main micro factors reduced the reservoir resistivity. Besides, the difference of hydrocarbon expulsion capacity of source rock and the regional difference of formation water salinity are the macro factors influenced the distribution of LRCP and HRP from vertical and horizontal of the region. The formation of LRCP is controlled by the comprehensive influence of reservoir micro factors and regional macro factors. And the comprehensive consideration of the influence of micro factors and macro factors on LRCP is suggested during the log interpretation and evaluation.

The role of vitamin D in the prevention and treatment of non-skeletal health issues has received significant media and research attention in recent years. Costs associated with clinical management of low vitamin D (LVD) have increased exponentially. However, no clear evidence supports vitamin D screening to improve health outcomes. Authoritative bodies and professional societies recommend against population-wide vitamin D screening in community-dwelling adults who are asymptomatic or at low risk of LVD. In order to assess patterns of physician management of LVD in this conflicting environment, we conducted a scoping review of three electronic databases and gray literature. Thirty-eight records met inclusion criteria and were summarized in an evidence table. Results from seven countries showed a consistent increase in vitamin D lab tests and related costs. Many vitamin D testing patterns reflected screening rather than targeted testing for individuals at high risk of vitamin D deficiency or insufficiency. Interventions aimed at managing inappropriate clinical practices related to LVD were effective in the short term. Variability and controversy were pervasive in many aspects of vitamin D management, shining light on physician practices in the face of uncertainty. Future research is needed is needed to inform better clinical guidelines and to assess implementation practices that encourage evidence-based management of LVD in adult populations.

Low back pain (LBP) is a leading cause of disability. It significantly impacts the patient’s quality of life, limits their daily living activities, and reduces work productivity. To reduce the burden of LBP, several pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatment options are available. This review summarizes the role of heat therapy in the management of LBP. First, we outline the common causes of LBP, then discuss the general mechanisms of heat therapy on (LB)P, and finally review the published evidence regarding the impact of heat therapy in patients with acute or chronic non-specific LBP. This review demonstrates that continuous, low-level heat therapy provides pain relief, improves muscular strength, and increases flexibility. Therefore, this effective, safe, easy-to-use, and cost-effective non-pharmacological pain relief option is still relevant in modern clinical practice.

The UK economy is overly reliant on unsustainable production and consumption practices, depleting finite resources at rates that will increase production costs, business risk and economic instability. This over-consumption produces emissions and waste that cause climate change and environmental degradation, impacting on the wellbeing of people in the UK and beyond. The Resource Recovery from Waste programme (RRfW) promotes a transition towards waste and resource management in a circular economy that restores the environment, creates societal benefits and promotes clean growth by engaging relevant actors in the transition process. RRfW collaborates with academia, government, and industry to co-produce a shared vision and approach to realise such a transition. Reflecting insights from RRfW’s government engagement, this article presents a positive outlook for changing the UK economy and society. It envisions a long-term future for waste and resource management that maximises the value of materials by circulating them in the economy for as long as possible. Four themes and an approach are proposed, including recommendations for regulatory instruments and a stable policy framework. It recommends further collaborative research to capitalise on opportunities for economic growth, innovation and resilient infrastructure whilst contributing to quality jobs and welfare in all four UK nations.

The Mediterranean diet (MedDiet) is recognised to reduce risk of coronary heart disease (CHD), in part, via its anti-inflammatory properties. Diet efficacy via this mechanism is however unclear in patients with diagnosed CHD. This study aimed to determine the effect of MedDiet versus low-fat diet intervention on inflammatory biomarkers and adiposity in a pilot cohort of Australian patients post coronary event. Participants (62±9 years, 83% male) were randomised to the MedDiet (n=34) or low-fat diet (n=31). At 0-, 3- and 6-months, dietary counselling, anthropometry, body composition (Dual-energy X-ray Absorptiometry) and venepuncture was conducted. Participants adhered well to the MedDiet intervention, however, there were no significant changes in body composition or inflammatory biomarkers hs-C-reactive protein or hs-interleukin-6 in the MedDiet compared to the low-fat diet group after 6-months. Adiponectin, an anti-inflammatory adipokine, tended to increase in response to the MedDiet (+1.1±4.2ng/mL, p=0.11) and decrease in response to the low-fat diet (-0.9±3.3ng/mL, p=0.20). In the pooled cohort, participants with greatest improvement in MedDiet adherence score had significantly lower waist circumference and subcutaneous fat levels at 6-months. A clinically significant effect of the MedDiet on inflammation and adiposity in CHD patients may require a larger sample, adjunct exercise intervention and/or caloric restriction.

We have successfully measured amyloid beta (Aβ) (1-40) protein added in human serum by a NiCr strain gauge cantilever biosensor immobilized with liposomes incorporating cholesterol. Importantly, we investigated the effect of incorporation of cholesterol in the liposome in order to suppress the interaction between the liposome and many different proteins included in human serum. It was revealed that incorporating cholesterol suppresses the interaction between the proteins other than Aβ in human serum and the liposome. Finally, we detected Aβ(1-40) in human serum with typical chronological behaviors due to Aβ aggregation and fibrillization. Furthermore, as a digital low-pass filtering procedure could reduce external noises, the cantilever sensor immobilized with liposome incorporating cholesterol can detect low-concentrated Aβ in human serum.

The concept of geostationary VHTS (Very High Throughput Satellites) is based on multibeam coverage with intensive frequency and polarization reuse in addition to the use of larger bandwidths in the feeder links, in order to provide high capacity satellite links at a reduced cost per Gbps in orbit. The dimensioning and design of satellite networks based on VHTS imposes the analysis of multiple trade-offs to achieve an optimal solution in terms of cost, capacity and figure of merit of the user terminal. In this paper, we propose a new method for sizing VHTS satellite networks based on an analytical expression of the forward link CINR (Carrier-to-Interference-plus-Noise Ratio) that is used to evaluate the trade-off of different combinations of system parameters. The proposed method considers both technical and commercial requirements as inputs including the constraints to achieve the optimum solution in terms of the user G/T, the number of beams and the system cost. The cost model includes both satellite and ground segments. Exemplary results are presented with feeder links using Q/V bands, DVB-S2X and transmission methods based on CCM and VCM (Constant and Variable Coding and Modulation, respectively) in two scenarios with different service areas.

The effect of the acetylene and hydrogen gases mixture ratios in direct low-temperature vacuum carburization was investigated. The gas ratio is an important parameter for producing the free radicals in the carburization. The free radicals can remove the natural oxide film by the strong reaction of the hydrocarbons, and then thermodynamically activity can be increased. When the gas ratio was below 1, the supersaturation expanded austenite layers were formed on the surface of the AISI 316L stainless steel, which had the maximum carbon solubility up to 11.5 at.% at 743 K, were formed. On the other hand, when the gas ratio was above 1, the carbon concentration of them remained low even if the process time was enough increased to reach the maximum carbon solubility. As a result, the carbon concentration underneath the surface was determined to be highly dependent on the gas mixture ratio of acetylene and hydrogen. In conclusion, it is necessary to restrict the ratio of acetylene and hydrogen gases to total mixture gases to form the expanded austenite layer with the high carbon concentration in the direct low-temperature vacuum carburization.

Findings from studies of prenatal exposure to pesticides and adverse birth outcomes have been equivocal so far. We examined prenatal exposure to agricultural pesticides in relation to preterm birth and term low birthweight, respectively, in children born between 1998 and 2010 randomly selected from California birth records. We estimated residential exposures to agriculturally applied pesticides within 2 km of residential addresses at birth by pregnancy trimester for 17 individual pesticides and 3 chemical classes (organophosphates, pyrethroids, and carbamates). Among maternal addresses located within 2 km of any agricultural pesticide application, we identified 24,693 preterm and 220,297 term births, and 4,412 term low birthweight and 194,732 term normal birthweight infants. First or second trimester exposures to individual pesticides (e.g., glyphosates, paraquat, imidacloprid) or exposures to 2+ pesticides in the three chemical classes were associated with small increases (3-7%) in risk for preterm birth; associations were stronger for female offspring. We did not find associations between term low birthweight and exposures to pesticides other than for myclobutanil (OR: 1.11; 95% CI: 1.04-1.20) and possibly pyrethroids as a class. Our improved exposure assessment revealed that first and second trimester exposures to pesticides were associated with preterm delivery but few affected term low birthweight.

Over half of adult Americans now have diabetes or prediabetes and worse, this epidemic is now world-wide and shows no signs of slowing, with rates of both diabetes and diabetes-related health complications still rising. When advising patients with diabetes on food choices, many providers rely on nutrition guidelines provided by the American Diabetes Association (ADA), and these guidelines influence other recommendations across the globe. Given the alarming trends in diabetes, it is paramount to review the treatment guidelines to ensure they are based on rigorous and accepted scientific methods. Our review included the evidence cited by the ADA in support of its claims and recommendations for eating patterns to combat diabetes (see Description of Eating Patterns, Supplemental Appendix), as presented in the most current edition of the annual ADA’s Standards of Medical Care in Diabetes (2018 Standards). Our review also includes sources cited in the latest edition of the ADA’s Nutrition Therapy Recommendations for Adults with Diabetes (2014 Recommendations), which also informed the 2018 Standards. In October 2018 low carbohydrate was named as a recommended eating pattern by the ADA and European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD)⁵but only citations from the 2014 and early 2018 ADA documents were reviewed.

A Twi-English parallel corpus is certainly an important resource for Machine Translation of Twi (ISO 639-3), a Low-Resource African Language (LRAL) which is mainly spoken in Ghana and Ivory Coast. Currently large-scale multi-domain Twi-English parallel corpus is still unavailable partly due to the difficulties and the arduous efforts required in its design. In this paper, we present TWIENG: a large-scale multi-domain Twi-English parallel corpus. We crawled the sentences from the web using web crawlers, translated, aligned, tokenized and compiled to create the corpus. We crawled English sentences from Ghanaian indigenous electronic news portals, Ghanaian Parliamentary Hansards, Twi Bible and crowdsourcing via google forms. The sentences were translated by professional translators and linguists, they were then aligned, tokenized and compiled. The corpus was curated using the sketch engine, a corpus manager and analysis software developed by Lexical Computing Limited. The corpus was manually evaluated by Twi professional linguists. The Corpus has 5,419 parallel sentences.

Abstract: Mass spectrometry research laboratories reported multiple probes for ambient ionization in the last years. Combining them with a mechanical moving stage enables automated sampling and imaging applications. We developed a robotic platform, which is based on RepRap 3D-printer components, and therefore easy to reproduce and to adopt for custom prototypes. The minimal step width of the Open LabBot is 12.5 μm, and the sampling dimensions (x, y, z) are 18 × 15 × 20 cm. Adjustable rails in an aluminium frame construction facilitate the mounting of additional parts such as sensors, probes, or optical components. The Open LabBot uses industry-standard G-code for its control. The simple syntax facilitates the programming of the movement. We developed two programs: 1) LABI-Imaging, for direct control via a USB connection and the synchronization with MS data acquisition. 2) RmsiGUI, which integrates all steps of mass spectrometry imaging: The creation of G-code for robot control, the assembly of imzML files from raw data and the analysis of imzML files. We proved the functionality of the system by the automated sampling and classification of essential oils with a PlasmaChip probe. Further, we performed an ambient ionization mass spectrometry imaging (AIMSI) experiment of a lime slice with laser desorption low-temperature plasma (LD-LTP) ionization, demonstrating the integration of the complete workflow in RmsiGUI. The design of the Open LabBot and the software are released under open licenses to promote their use and adoption in the instrument developers’ community.

Estimation of the worth of continuity of electricity supply is of interest of industry, authorities and research society. There are numerous methods to calculate the Customer Interruption Costs (CICs). Each method has its advantages and disadvantages. This paper approaches the problem from Distribution System Operators’ (DSOs) point of view and adopts two existing analytical models. One model is used by the Finnish Energy Market Authority and the second one was proposed by the authors at a previous study. The model suggested by the authors as an alternative to the one used by the Finnish Energy Market Authority proposes a simple and straightforward methodology which will provide credible and objective estimations by only utilizing publicly available analytical data. We made use of cost and reliability indices data of 78 DSOs in Finland from the year 2016. In addition to cost estimations, this paper highlights regional differences in CIC estimations in different parts of Finland and critically overviews the existing standard customer compensation scheme in Finland.

We propose a novel transfer learning method for speech emotion recognition allowing us to obtain promising results when only few training data is available. With as low as 125 examples per emotion class, we were able to reach a higher accuracy than a strong baseline trained on 8 times more data. Our method leverages knowledge contained in pre-trained speech representations extracted from models trained on a more general self-supervised task which doesn’t require human annotations, such as the wav2vec model. We provide detailed insights on the benefits of our approach by varying the training data size, which can help labeling teams to work more efficiently. We compare performance with other popular methods on the IEMOCAP dataset, a well-benchmarked dataset among the Speech Emotion Recognition (SER) research community. Furthermore, we demonstrate that results can be greatly improved by combining acoustic and linguistic knowledge from transfer learning. We align acoustic pre-trained representations with semantic representations from the BERT model through an attention-based recurrent neural network. Performance improves significantly when combining both modalities and scales with the amount of data. When trained on the full IEMOCAP dataset, we reach a new state-of-the-art of 73.9% unweighted accuracy (UA).

A mechanical ventilation system is a big support for breathing complications, in which an external solution is quite necessary to keep oxygen compensation in the patients. Its knowledge is well widespread and different equipment has been developed. However, they are very expensive and their quantity in medical centers is not sufficient, especially in Peru. Hence, it has been required to develop new methods to provide oxygen by a low cost equipment; Protofy, a research group from Spain, designed one of the first low cost mechanical ventilation systems which was medically validated by its government. In this sense, a redesign of the mechanical ventilation system was carried out according to the local requirements and available technology, a different airbag resuscitator with different properties and geometry, but maintaining its working concept based on a cam compression mechanism. Sensors and a display were added to improve the performance with a control algorithm for the rotation frequency and to show the ventilation curves over time to the medical staff. It was necessary to develop a mathematical model to relate the behavior between ventilation curves for a patient and physical variables of the design, especially in the epidemic COVID 19, that many countries are dealing with at the time research is being conducted. The mechanical ventilation system was redesigned, fabricated, and tested measuring its ventilation curves over time. Results indicate that this redesign provides a sturdy equipment able to work during a longer lifetime than the original. The replicability of the ventilation curves behavior is assured, while the mechanism dimensions are adapted for a particular airbag resuscitator. The mathematical model of the whole system can predict satisfactorily the ventilation curves over time and was used to provide the air pressure, volume, and flow as a function of the rotation angle measured by sensors.

Previous studies investigated the effects of seed rates and seed recycling practices on the yield and yield related variables. However, higher yield does not always guarantee cost-efficiency. This study aimed at investigating the yield effects of plot-level seed rate along with the cost-benefit analysis of seed recycling practices. This study has introduced the dose-response model to the existing analytical methods used in analyzing the effect of different agrochemicals on crop yield. A multi-stage stratified sampling technique was used to select a total of 450 sample respondents. Data was gathered using a mix of data collection tools. Descriptive statistics along with the dose-response model have been applied for data analysis. Farmers of the study were found to be dissimilar in terms of their seed rate application. The dose-response analysis indicated that the highest average wheat yield has been associated with a seed rate of 50 kg ha-1 above what is recommended. The yield effect of seed recycling has also been assessed and a one-time seed recycling has caused a yield decline of 665 kg ha-1 as compared to the non-recycled seeds. The cost reduced by using recycled seed is by far lower than the economic gains associated with using unrecycled and fresh seeds. The cost-benefit analysis made clear that farmers can reduce their seed costs through seed recycling but their yields and net income can be best improved by using unrecycled CBWS. Thus, farmers must be encouraged to make use of unrecycled seed by establishing agricultural credit schemes geared towards seed procurement and seed price subsidy as key strategies to reduce economically wasteful seed recycling practices.

The objective of this paper was to give an overview of the expressed preference (EP) techniques of environmental valuation. These methods offer estimation of the value of a resource not necessarily willingness to pay (WTP) or willingness to Accept (WTA) compensation rather upper and lower values. The method of measuring individuals’ willingness to pay is usually based on contingent valuation method (CVM). This research focuses on defining, categorizing, and applicability of various environmental valuation techniques that have been and can be applied in attaching value to a given resource using expressed/Revealed preference methods. The study serves as a supplementary synthesis and discussion to the board of knowledge of resource valuation methods. More specifically, selected methods to discussed herein include; contingent valuation method, hedonic pricing model, travel cost method, trade-off game method, the costless-choice method, Delphi method, Replacement Cost Method, Relocation Cost Method, Opportunity cost method, and Cost-benefit Method. In the last part, applicability of the methods is fully illustrated to support future studies on resource valuation.

Electric Vehicles (EVs) are increasing the interdependence of transportation policies and the electricity market. EMMEV (Electricity Market Model with Electric Vehicles) is an experimental agent-based model that analyses how carbon reduction policy in transportation may increase number of Electric Vehicles and how does that would influence on the electricity price. Agents are ESCOs (Energy Service Providers) which can distribute fuels and their objective is to maximize their profit. In this paper, EMMEV is used to analyze the impacts of the LCFS (Low Carbon Fuel Standard), a performance-based policy instrument, on electricity prices and EV sales. The agents in EMMEV/regulated parties in LCFS should meet a certain CI (Carbon Intensity) target for their distributed fuel. In case, they cannot meet the target, they should buy credit to compensate for their shortfall and if they exceed, they can sell their excess. The results, considering the assumptions and limitations of the model, show that the banking strategy of the agents contributing in the LCFS might have negative impact on penetration of EVs, unless there is a regular Credit Clearance to trade credits. It is also shown that the electricity price as result of implementing the LCFS and increasing number of EVs has increased between 2–3 percent depending on banking strategy.

The present study examined and compared the effects of high- and low-molecular weight (MW) chitosan, a nutraceutical, on intestinal and liver lipid metabolism in rats fed with high-fat diet. Both high- and low-MW chitosan decreased liver weight, elongated small intestine, improved the dysregulation of blood lipids and liver fat accumulation, and increased fecal lipid excretion in high-fat diet-fed rats. Supplementation of both high- and low-MW chitosan significantly inhibited the decreased phosphorylated AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK)α and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR)α protein expressions and the increased lipogenesis/cholesterogenesis-associated protein expressions (sterol regulatory element binding protein (SREBP)1c, SREBP2, and PPARγ) and the decreased apolipoprotein (Apo)E and microsomal triglyceride transfer protein (MTTP) protein expressions in the livers of high-fat diet-fed rats. Both high and low-MW chitosan supplementation could also suppress the increased MTTP protein expression and the decreased angiopoietin-like protein (Angptl)4 protein expression in the intestines of high-fat diet-fed rats. Comparison between high and low-MW chitosan, high-MW chitosan has a higher efficiency than low-MW chitosan on the inhibition of intestinal lipid absorption and the increase of hepatic fatty acid oxidation, which can improve liver lipid biosynthesis and accumulation.

A high proportion of dogs and cats are fearful during veterinary visits, which in some cases may escalate into aggression. Here, we discuss factors that contribute to negative emotions in a veterinary setting and how these can be addressed. The set-up of the waiting area (e.g. spatial dividers; elevated places for cat carriers), tailoring the examination and the treatment to the individual, considerate handling (minimal restraint when possible, avoiding leaning over or cornering animals) and offering high-value food or toys throughout the visit can promote security and, ideally, positive associations. Desensitisation and counterconditioning are highly recommended both to prevent and address existing negative emotions. Some negative experiences such as short-term pain from injections can be minimised by using tactile and cognitive distractions. Preemptive analgesia is recommended for known painful procedures. Recommendations for handling fearful animals to minimise aggressive responses are discussed. However, anxiolytics or sedation should be used whenever there is a risk of traumatising an animal or for safety reasons. Stress-reducing measures can decrease stress and fear in patients and consequently their owners – thus strengthening the relationship with the clients as well as increasing the professional satisfaction of veterinary staff.

Over the last decades, the energy market around the world has reshaped due to accommodating the high penetration of renewable energy resources. Although renewable energy sources have brought various benefits, including low operation cost of wind and solar PV power plants, and reducing the environmental risks associated with the conventional power resources, they have imposed a wide range of difficulties in power system planning and operation. Naturally, classical optimal power flow (OPF) is a nonlinear problem. Integrating renewable energy resources with conventional thermal power generators escalates the difficulty of the OPF problem due to the uncertain and intermittent nature of these resources. To address the complexity associated with the process of the integration of renewable energy resources into the classical electric power systems, two probability distribution functions (Weibull and lognormal) are used to forecast the voltaic power output of wind and solar photovoltaic, respectively. Optimal power flow, including renewable energy, is formulated as a single-objective and multi-objective problem in which many objective functions are considered, such as minimizing the fuel cost, emission, real power loss, and voltage deviation. Real power generation, bus 13 voltage, load tap changers ratios, and shunt compensators values are optimized under various power systems’ 14 constraints. This paper aims to solve the OPF problem and examines the effect of renewable energy resources 15 on the above-mentioned objective functions. A combined model of wind integrated IEEE 30-bus system, solar 16 PV integrated IEEE 30-bus system, and hybrid wind and solar PV integrated IEEE 30-bus system are performed 17 using the equilibrium optimizer technique (EO) and other five heuristic search methods. A comparison of 18 simulation and statistical results of EO with other optimization techniques showed that EO is more effective 19 and superior.

In this study, four kinds of animal bone marrow powders were extracted with n-hexane using the Soxhlet extraction method. Polyunsaturated fatty acids were enriched by urea inclusion and low temperature crystallization method, then were further evaluated antioxidant and antibacterial activities. These results showed that the oil composition of the n-hexane extracts of four kinds of animal bone marrow primarily consisted of palmitic acid (18.57–31.01%), stearic acid (3.6–20.95%), and oleic acid (40.22–58.69%). The ratios of saturated fatty acids (SFA)/unsaturated fatty acids (UFA) were 1/1.417, 1/1.327, 1/2.140, and 1.285/1 for sheep, bovine, horse, and camel bone marrow oil, respectively. The SFA/UFA ratios determined by the urea inclusion method were 1/1.518, 1/1.390, 1/2.037, and 1.216/1, respectively. The SFA/UFA ratios according to the low temperature crystallization method with acetone were 1/1.920, 1/2.141, 1/2.360, and 1/1.157 for sheep, bovine, horse, and camel bone marrow oil, respectively. These enrichment methods effected the concentrations of UFAs from the camel bone marrow oil. Among the methods, the low temperature crystallization method effectively enriched the UFAs. All four bone marrow oils exhibited strong antioxidant and antimicrobial activities. The horse bone marrow oil showed the strongest antioxidant activity. Both antioxidant and antimicrobial activity improved after enrichment of the UFAs. These results lay a theoretical basis for application bone marrow oil resources in food and medicine.

This study evaluates eight-year ownership costs for battery electric vehicles (BEV) versus non-plugin hybrid vehicles using forecasting to estimate future electricity and conventional gasoline prices and incorporating these in a multiple design of experiments simulation. Results suggest that while electric vehicles are statistically dominant in terms of variable costs over an 8-year life-span, high-performance hybrid non-plugins achieve variable fuel costs nearly as good as low-performing electric vehicles (those attaining only 3 miles per kilowatt hour) and that these hybrid acquisition costs are (on average) lower yet the vehicles retain higher residual values. In general, the six smallest ownership costs are split evenly between hybrid and electric vehicles; however, inflation for conventional regular gasoline is estimated to outstrip inflation per kilowatt hour. Thus, non-plugin hybrid cars are likely to require considerably more advanced engineering to keep pace.

Most people living in Europe's cities are still exposed to levels of air pollution deemed harmful by the World Health Organization. In the modern world, air pollution is the foremost concern because of its impact in human health and economy. This strong connection appears gaining a lot of concern, driven by new installed low-cost electrochemical sensors monitoring systems. Highly accuracy, real-time monitoring, daily and yearly statistics, data access from experts or simple users, low-cost equipment and forecasting needs, enforce the market to develop new air quality monitoring systems using advanced technologies and protocols. In this study, a comparison via low-cost electrochemical sensors and of static, fixed site measurement monitoring station, is taking place in Athens, Greece, along with the data quality and Air Quality Index (AQI) including data accuracy and quality of data concerning adverse health effects due to air pollution. The findings presented in this work, relate to different flexible and affordable alternatives adopted during the evaluation and calibration of low-cost gas sensors for the monitoring. The significance of the positive results is particularly useful, especially considering the founding for interference, environmental conditions affections and air quality information including indexes and health recommendations for a specific location.

Multi-Alignment method coupled with phylogenetic analysis we disclosed the Nsp9 and Nsp10 non-structural proteins of Corona Virus as rRNA RlmH/K methyltransferases with similarities with bin recombinase and int-core integrase fold. Further, Nsp9 has similarities to S8 ribosomal protein and Nap10 has similarity to S10 ribosomal protein. Previously, we showed Nsp13, Nsp14, Nsp15 and Nsp16 are also different types of rRNA RlmE/N and Cfr-like methyltransferases-ribonuclease with RNA helicase domains. Two domains of Nsp13 astonishingly have similarities to ribosomal proteins L6 and L9. Taken together, Nsp9/10 and Nsp13-16 proteins could mimic host ribosome assembly and also could methylate rRNA of mitobibosome preventing mitochondrial protein synthesis and oxidative phosphorylation. Low ATP synthesis causes lowering blood pressure following coma but very ATP concentration (1-10nM) surely induces platelets aggregation through vWA, collagen and GpIIb/IIIa proteins followed by fibrin formation and blood clotting as recently have seen in the lung of many Corona virus infected patients. We have also postulated that two polyproteins itself resemble like 28S and 38S mitoribosome subunits and compete with rRNAs inhibiting the ribosome turnover and new protein synthesis due to their similarities with many ribosomal proteins. Such finding may be valuable in computer-based novel drug design against Corona virus.

The regulation of hepatic very-low-density lipoprotein (VLDL) secretion plays an important role in the pathogenesis of dyslipidemia and fatty liver diseases. VLDL is controlled by hepatic microsomal triglyceride transfer protein (MTTP). Mttp is regulated by carbohydrate response element binding protein (ChREBP) and small heterodimer partner (SHP). However, it is unclear whether both coordinately regulate Mttp expression and VLDL secretion. Here, adenoviral overexpression of ChREBP and SHP in rat primary hepatocytes induced and suppressed Mttp mRNA, respectively. However, Mttp induction by ChREBP was much more potent than suppression by SHP. Promoter assays of Mttp and the liver type pyruvate kinase gene revealed that SHP and ChREBP did not affect the transactivity of each other. Mttp mRNA and protein levels of Shp^/– mice were similar to those of wild-type; however, those of Chrebp^–/–Shp^–/– and Chrebp^–/– mice were much lower. Consistent with this, the VLDL particle number and VLDL secretion rates in Shp^–/–- mice were similar to wild-type, but were much lower in Chrebp^–/– and Chrebp^–/–Shp^–/–- mice. These findings suggested that ChREBP rather than SHP regulates VLDL secretion and that ChREBP and SHP do not affect the transactivities of each other.

Background: There are major air pollution monitoring gaps in sub-Saharan Africa. Developing capacity in the region to conduct air monitoring in the region can help estimate exposure to air pollution for epidemiology research. The purpose of our study is to develop a land use regression (LUR) model using low-cost air quality sensors developed by a research group in Uganda (AirQo). Methods: Using these low-cost sensors, we collected continuous measurements of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) between May 1, 2019 and February 29, 2020 at 22 monitoring sites across urban municipalities of Uganda. We compared average monthly PM2.5 concentrations from the AirQo sensors with measurements from a BAM-1020 reference monitor operated at the US Embassy in Kampala. Monthly PM2.5 concentrations were used for LUR modeling. We used eight Machine Learning (ML) algorithms and ensemble modeling; using 10-fold cross validation and root mean squared error (RMSE) to evaluate model performance. Results: Monthly PM2.5 concentration was 60.2 µg/m³ (IQR: 45.4-73.0 µg/m³; median= 57.5 µg/m³). For the ML LUR models, RMSE values ranged between 5.43 µg/m³ - 15.43 µg/m³ and explained between 28% and 92% of monthly PM2.5 variability. Generalized additive models explained the largest amount of PM2.5 variability (R²=0.92) and produced the lowest RMSE (5.43 µg/m³) in the held-out test set. The most important predictors of monthly PM2.5 concentrations included monthly precipitation, major roadway density, population density, latitude, greenness, and percentage of households using solid fuels. Conclusion: To our knowledge, ours is the first study to model the spatial distribution of urban air pollution in sub-Saharan Africa using air monitors developed from the region itself. Non-parametric ML for LUR modeling performed with high accuracy for prediction of monthly PM2.5 levels. Our analysis suggests that locally produced low-cost air quality sensors can help build capacity to conduct air pollution epidemiology research in the region.

Accurate and stable cost forecasting of substation projects is of great significance to ensure the economic construction and sustainable operation of power engineering projects. In this paper, a forecasting model based on the improved least squares support vector machine (ILSSVM) optimized by wolf pack algorithm(WPA) is proposed to improve the accuracy and stability of the cost forecasting of substation projects. Firstly, the optimal features are selected through the data inconsistency rate (DIR), which helps reduce redundant input vectors. Secondly, the wolf pack algorithm is used to optimize the parameters of the improved least square support vector machine. Lastly, the cost forecasting method of WPA-DIR-ILSSVM is established. In this paper, 88 substation projects in different regions from 2015 to 2017 are chosen to conduct the training tests to verify the validity of the model. The results indicate that the new hybrid WPA-DIR-ILSSVM model presents better accuracy, robustness and generality in cost forecasting of substation projects.

The term low-resourced has been tossed around in the field of natural language processing to a degree that almost any language that is not English can be called "low-resourced"; sometimes even just for the sake of making a mundane or mediocre paper appear more interesting and insightful. In a field where English is a synonym for language and low-resourced is a synonym for anything not English, calling endangered languages low-resourced is a bit of an overstatement. In this paper, I inspect the relation of the endangered with the low-resourced from my own experiences.

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) affects >10% of the adult population. Each year approximately 120,000 Americans develop end-stage kideny disease and initiate dialysis, which is costly and associated with functional impairments, worse health-related quality of life, and high early-mortality rates exceeding 20% in the first year. Recent declarations by the World Kidney Day and the U.S. Government Executive Order seek to implement strategies that reduce the burden of kidney failure by slowing CKD progression and controlling uremia without dialysis. Pragmatic dietary interventions may have a role in improving CKD outcomes and preventing or delaying dialysis initiation. Evidence suggests that a patient-centered plant-dominant low-protein diet (PLADO) of 0.6-0.8 g/kg/day comprised of >50% plant-based sources, administered by dietitians trained in non-dialysis CKD care, can be promising. The scientific premise of the PLADO is based on the observations that high protein diets with high meat intake are not only associated with higher cardiovascular disease risk but also higher CKD incidence and faster CKD progression due to increased intraglomerular pressure and glomerular hyperfiltration. Meat intake increases production of nitrogenous end-products, worsens uremia, and may increase the risk of hyperkalemia, given constipation from the typical low fiber intake. Plant-dominant, fiber-rich, low-protein diet may lead to favorable alterations in the gut microbiome, which can modulate uremic toxin generation and slow CKD progression, along with reducing cardiovascular risk in CKD patients. PLADO is a heart-healthy, safe, flexible, and feasible diet that could be the centerpiece of a conservative and preservative CKD-management strategy that challenges the prevailing dialysis-centered paradigm.

MEMThe PdNi film hydrogen sensors with Wheatstone bridge structure were designed and fabricated by the micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) technology. The integrated sensors consisted of four PdNi alloy film resistors. The interval two of them were shielded with silicon nitride film and used as reference resistance, while the others were used for hydrogen sensing. The PdNi alloy films and SiN films were deposited by magnetron sputtering. The morphology and microstructure of the PdNi films were characterized with X-ray diffraction (XRD). The output resistance signal was converted to millivolt output voltage signal for easy data acquisition. Hydrogen (H2) sensing properties of PdNi film hydrogen sensor with Wheatstone bridge structure was investigated under different temperatures (30℃, 50℃ and 70℃) and H2 concentrations (from 10 ppm to 0.4%). The hydrogen sensor demonstrated good response at different hydrogen concentrations and high repeatability in cycle testing under 0.4% H2 concentration. Under 10ppm hydrogen, the PdNi film hydrogen sensor had evident and collectable output voltage of 600 μV.

We conducted an in-situ crystal structure analysis of ferroselite at non-ambient conditions. The aim is to provide a solid ground to further the understanding of the properties of this material in a broad range of conditions. Ferroselite, marcasite-type FeSe2, was studied under high pressures up to 46 GPa and low temperatures, down to 50 K using single-crystal microdiffraction techniques. High pressure and low temperatures were generated using a diamond anvil cell and a cryostat. We found no evidences of structural instability in the explored P-T space. The deformation of the orthorhombic lattice is slightly anisotropic. As expected, the compressibility of the Se-Se dumbbell, the longer bond in the structure, is larger than that of the Fe-Se bonds. Less obvious is the behavior of the octahedral bonds, the shorter bond is the most compressible determining a small increase in the octahedron distortion with pressure. We also achieved a robust structural analysis of ferroselite at low temperature in the diamond anvil cell. Structural changes upon temperature decrease are small but qualitatively similar to those produced by pressure.

The epidemiological situation generated by COVID-19 has highlighted the importance of applying non-pharmacological measures. Among these, mass screening of the asymptomatic general population has been established as a priority strategy by carrying out diagnostic tests to limit the spread of the virus. In this article, we aim to evaluate the economic impact of mass COVID-19 screenings of an asymptomatic population through a Cost-Benefit Analysis based on the estimated total costs of mass screening versus health gains and associated health costs avoided. Excluding the value of monetized health, the Benefit-Cost ratio was estimated at approximately 0.45. However, if monetized health is included in the calculation, the ratio is close to 1.20. The monetization of health is the critical element that tips the scales in favour of the desirability of screening. Screenings with the highest return are those that maximize the percentage of positives detected.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced the transition to emergency online learning without prior preparation or guidelines. This transition has been particularly challenging in developing countries and low-resource contexts and hindered student engagement. We aim to identify the engagement strategies which students, engaging in emergency online learning in low-resource contexts, perceive to be effective. We conducted a sequential mixed-methods study based on Moore’s interaction framework for distance education. First, we conducted a literature review and interviewed ten teachers and ten students to identify a list of engagement strategies. Then, we designed a questionnaire that examines student perceptions of these strategies. We administered the questionnaire to 313 students engaging in emergency online learning in low-resource contexts. Our analysis results showed that student-content engagement strategies, e.g. screen sharing, summaries, and class recordings, are perceived as the most effective, closely followed by student-teacher strategies, e.g. Q&A sessions and reminders. Student-student strategies, e.g. group chat and collaborative work, are perceived as the least effective. The perceived effectiveness of engagement strategies depends on the context and the students’ characteristics, e.g. gender, major, and technology access. To support instructors, instructional designers, and researchers we propose a ten-level guide for engaging students during emergency online classes in low-resource contexts.

Number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 caused by SARS-CoV-2 exceeded 5 million as of May 21, 2020. Global average of the case fatality rate of COVID-19 is about 7% so far. There exist variations in case fatality rates among countries. Particularly, Singapore and Qatar have exceptionally low case fatality rates with 0.1% while France’s rate is almost 20%. Since no magic bullet treatment for COVID-19 exists, we investigated SARS-CoV-2 strains specific to Singapore in this study to identify a clade with low pathogenicity. Variant analysis revealed that a clade with variants ORF1ab L3606F, A4489V, S2015R, T2016K, and N P13L is common in Singapore. Based on our analysis of variants and historical case statistics, the clade is dominant in a recent surge. Therefore, we suggest that low case fatality rate of Singapore possibly is attributed to the clade. Although contribution of each variant to the low pathogenicity is not clear, L3606F alone does not accomplish such low pathogenicity from the comparison with case fatality data from Japan, where L3606F is dominant. Further investigation is necessary to conclude to validate this finding.

Background: Simulation plays a crucial role in health studies, as it helps medical students apply their theoretical knowledge in real-life situations. Moulage is one of the techniques that helps in making simulation more realistic or high-fidelity. It uses special effects to emulate wounds for a better understanding of what the wound is like visually. Still, moulage is expensive, time-consuming, resource-intensive, and requires the training of staff, which is why we need to find low-cost substitutes for moulage materials. Method: When searching the database “PubMed” for the terms “Low-cost and Medical moulage”, we retrieved 222 studies, out of which when excluding results not related to low-cost, we obtained 62 studies, from which when removing studies that do not contain information regarding moulage, we found two papers, after referring to citations and cited articles of those papers, we ended up with six studies. Based on the selected articles and additional articles sourced from their reference list, a total of 11 studies were included in the review. Results: We understand that moulage is a technique that helps make simulations come alive, but the resources required to use it are at times, expensive, which is why we need to find methods to do low-cost moulage, and many studies address that it can be as simple as using homemade ingredients. Students from a previous study have talked about their opinions regarding the realistic component of moulage and whether if it is any different from other moulages. Most of the students agreed that the moulage ranked well in face and content validity. However, further innovations must be introduced in the field to be widely spread and lead to newer opportunities. Conclusion: Although the research done under moulage is limited, it is accepted that moulage is helpful for simulation-based studies and that low-cost moulage can help make medical studies a better experience for students studying it. Students have a favorable opinion on the realistic aspect of the low-cost moulage applied to them. Newer methods can be introduced to moulage, and it can be implemented in low-income countries.

Taking four of the United Nations Development Goals as reference, this overview describes the need to see from a systemic perspective, the food certifications programs along the food chain in Mexico as today food certifications are voluntary. Using secondary data, the main objectives were: a) there is a fall short in food safety policies and those federal agencies responsible for food safety, to guarantee safe food along the whole domestic food chain, especially in that for low income players; b) the amount of the Mexican Federal Budget Expenses devoted to safety food issues is really low, considering the health, well- being, and food security consequences; and c) due the structural heterogeneity of the Mexican food market, there is a lack of coordination in food regulations along all agents of the food supply chain, bringing to alternate informal markets that put at risk peoples´ health, increasing poverty and inequalities. According to this exercise, only 0.7- 8.7% of producers, 12.5% of supermarkets as well as 42.8% of restaurants would have some type of certifications. Public policies must attend this issue in order to improve food safety and security for the whole population, reducing inequalities, poverty and ensuring them a healthy live.

It is often difficult to extract data on material and energy wates and related costs in the value chain of conventional production units. Many organizations are not fully aware of the actual cost of material and energy waste. For this purpose, advanced costing methods should be used. This study uses material and energy flow cost accounting to determine material costs, losses, and waste management. The case study of this research is the construction of turbine blades in Iran Power Plant Company. In this study, using the extracted data, the construction costs of turbine blades have been studied. The conventional method of making a turbine blade is the machining method, which we will see has a huge amount of wastes of materials and energy. By studying different methods, we will find that there is an alternative method called forging, which reduces losses and costs. Finally, the costs of the two methods are compared. Engineering economics techniques have also been used to compare two methods on a long-term planning horizon.

What proportions should a thermally massive building have? How should the thermal mass be distributed? Should the "massing" change with the choice of material? This paper shows how to optimize the physical proportions of a building so that it synchronizes ambient heat exchanges in a natural feedback cycle. The internal mass is thermally coupled with buoyancy ventilation; the cycle is driven by the daily swing of outdoor temperature. Tripling up functions in this way—so that structural materials can reliably cool and power the ventilation for buildings—could help decarbonize the construction industry and provide an effective strategy for adapting to life-threatening heatwaves. Based on harmonic analysis, the method allows designers to thermally tune the form and mass of a building to meet chosen targets for temperature and ventilation in free-running mode. Once the optimal balance of exchange rates is known, design teams can proportionally vary the building height and ventilation openings against the surface area and thickness of an internal thermal mass. The possible permutations are infinite but parametrically constrained, allowing teams to fairly compare the functional and environmental credentials of different construction materials while they produce and evaluate preliminary options for organizing the exterior form and interior spaces of a building. An example study suggests that thin-shell structures of minimum weight, and even timber buildings, may be optimally tuned to produce ample ventilation and temperature attenuation.

In Low and Lower-Middle-Income countries, the prevalence of anemia in infancy remains high. In early childhood anemia cause irreversible cognitive deficits and represents a higher risk of child mortality. The consequences of anemia in infancy are a major barrier to overcome poverty traps. The aim of this study was to analyze based on a multi-level approach, different factors associated with anemia in children 6–23 m old based on recent available Standard Demographic Health Surveys (S-DHS). We identified 52 S-DHS that had complete information in all covariates of interest in our analysis between 2005 and 2015. We performed traditional logistic regressions and multilevel logistic regression analyses to study the association between hemoglobin concentrations and household, child, maternal, socio-demographic variables. In our sample, 70 % of the 6–23 m old children were anemic. Child anemia was strongly associated with maternal anemia, household wealth, maternal education and low birth weight. Children fed with fortified foods, potatoes and other tubers had significantly lower rates of anemia. Improving overall household living conditions, increasing maternal education, delaying childbearing and introducing iron rich foods at six months of age may reduce the likelihood of anemia at in toddlerhood.

Selenium-rich Au-Ag mineralization has been discovered in the Kremnica ore district, central Slovakia. The mineralization is hosted by a single quartz-dolomite vein hosted by Neogene propyllitized andesites of the Kremnica stratovolcano. Ore mineralogy and crystal chemistry of individual ore minerals have been studied here. The early base-metal ore mineralization composed of pyrite, sphalerite and chalcopyrite lacks selenium, whereas the superimposed Au-Ag paragenesis is Se-enriched. The Au-Ag alloys, uytenbogaardtite, minerals of the galena-clausthalite series, acanthite-naumannite series, diaphorite, miargyrite, pyrargyrite-proustite, polybasite group, minerals of the tetrahedrite group and andorite branch (andorite IV, andorite VI, Ag-excess fizélyite), freislebenite, and rare Pb-Sb sulphosalts (scaiinite, robinsonite, plagionite) have been identified here. Besides selenides, the most Se-enriched phases are miargyrite, proustite-pyrargyrite, and polybasite-pearceite, whose Se contents are among the highest reported worldwide. In addition, one new phase has been found, corresponding to a Se-analogue of pearceite containing 2.08 - 3.54 apfu Se. The style of mineralization, paragenetic situation, and chemical trends observed in individual minerals are comparable to those of Au-Ag low-sulphidation epithermal Au-Ag mineralizations of the Kremnica and neighboring Štiavnica and Hodruša-Hámre Ore Districts, however, the pronounced enrichment in selenium is a specific feature of the studied vein only.

Indoor air quality and public health have always been an area of prime interest across the globe. The significance of low-cost air quality sensing and indoor public health practices spikes during the time of pandemic and epidemics when indoor air pollution becomes a threat to living beings especially human beings. Indoor diseases are hard to diagnose if they are due to the indoor environmental conditions. A major challenge was observed in establishing a baseline between the indoor air quality sensors and associated diseases. In this work, 10,000+ articles from top literature databases were reviewed using bibliometric analysis to formulate indoor air quality sensors and diseases correlation rubrics to critically review 500+ articles. A set of 200+ articles were selected based on for detailed study based on seven bibliometric indices for publications that used WHO, NIH, US EPA, CDC, and FDA defined principles. This review has been conducted to assist end-users, public health facilities, state agencies, researchers, scientists and air quality protection agencies.

Global warming and climate change have led to extreme changes in climatic conditions in recent years. The Taiwan government designates the construction of the Kinmen County as low carbon islands, to promote the operation of 100 electric motorcycles and battery demonstration. This study combined with island tourism, after boarding the island, visitors can rent electric motorcycles from the passenger service center and coordinate with the island tour map to show the location of the battery exchange points, so as to facilitate the search. During the operation, the amount of electric motorcycle lease is 15,551 times, the total mileage of motor vehicle is 284,404 km, the number of battery exchange is 622 times, the lease income is about NT$900,000. To reduce carbon and economic benefits of the assessment, compared to the motorcycles (50 c.c), electric motorcycles (EM 100) can reduce the carbon emissions by 8,726 kg, reducing energy costs of NT$422,594.

Microsystems are key enabling technologies, with applications found in almost every industrial field, including in-vitro diagnostic, energy harvesting, automotive, telecommunication, drug screening, etc. Microsystems, such as microsensors and actuators, are typically made up of components below 1000 microns in size that can be manufactured at low-unit cost through mass-production. Yet, the development of microsystems for commercial or educational purposes, has typically been limited to upper income countries due to the initial investment costs associated with the microfabrication equipment and processes. However, recent technological advances have enabled the development of low-cost microfabrication tools. In this paper, we describe a range of low-cost approaches and equipment (below £1000), developed or adapted and implemented in our laboratories. We describe processes including photolithography, micromilling, 3D printing, xurography and screen-printing used for the microfabrication of structural and functional materials. The processes that can be used to shape a range of materials with sub-millimetre feature sizes are demonstrated here in the context of Lab-on-Chips, but they can be adapted for other applications. We anticipate that this paper, which will enable researchers to build a low-cost microfabrication toolbox in a wide range of settings, will spark a new interest in microsystems.

Project complexity is usually considered as one of main causes of cost overruns, resulting in poor performance and thus project failure. However, empirical studies focused on evaluating its effects on project cost remain lacking. Given this circumstance, this study attempts to develop the relationships between project cost and the multidimensional project complexity elements. We establish complexity as a multidimensional factor including the task, organization, market, legal, and environment complexities. This study uses an empirical evidence-based structural model to account for the relationships between project cost and project complexity. By doing so, a quantitative assessment of multi-dimensional project complexity has been developed. The findings suggest that task and organization complexities have direct effects on project cost, while market, legal and external environment complexities have indirect effects on project cost. The practical contribution is that the findings can improve the understanding of which dimension of complexity significantly influence project cost, and the need to focus efforts on strategically addressing that complexities.

The present work aimed to validate a low-cost passive monitoring procedure. For its validation, the monitoring of atmospheric organic pollutants - polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) was carried out in a capital of the central-western region of Brazil. The sensors were fixed on poles intended for electrification during the dry season. After 15 days, samples were extracted by solvent extraction and analysed by High-Resolution Gas Chromatography with Flame Ionization Detector (HRGC-FID). For the validation of the procedure, PAHs monitored and standardised by the American Environmental Agency (EPA), a benchmark for environmental monitoring of air quality by several countries, were analysed. The results demonstrated that the low-cost passive monitoring method was effective in the quantification of PAH in the environment-air, capable of being used by countries that do not have many resources for monitoring air quality.

Student attendance serves many other important purposes aside from monitoring. In certain universities, the attendance of students in a course is also used as one of the requirements for students to be allowed to sit for the final examination. Traditionally, among most Malaysian Institutions of Higher Learning (IHL), attendance recording is usually done using pen and paper, or uses simple web-based system that is time consuming and difficult for faculty periodic monitoring. To address the identified drawbacks, this research aims to develop a Smart Attendance for Faculty Monitoring System using the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology to assist faculty in recording, managing and monitoring students’ attendance and class schedules effectively. The system is developed for Android-based devices using an agile methodology consists of iteration and incremental approaches. Thus, to evaluate the effectiveness of the system, a survey was conducted on 140 respondents involving lecturers and students of Kolej Universiti Poly-Tech MARA (KUPTM). Respondents were selected using purposive sampling. The descriptive analysis showed that 87.9% of the respondents strongly agreed that the system is effective in assisting lecturers to record attendance, manage class schedules and student attendance as well as to assist faculty in monitoring students’ absenteeism.

This paper analyses and evaluate the precision and the accuracy the capability of low-cost terrestrial photogrammetry by using many digital cameras to construct a 3D model of an object. To obtain the goal, a building façade has imaged by two inexpensive digital cameras such as Canon and Pentax camera. Bundle adjustment and image processing calculated by using Agisoft PhotScan software. Several factors will be included during this study, different cameras, and control points. Many photogrammetric point clouds will be generated. Their accuracy will be compared with some natural control points which collected by the laser total station of the same building. The cloud to cloud distance will be computed for different comparison 3D models to investigate different variables. The practical field experiment showed a spatial positioning reported by the investigated technique was between 2-4cm in the 3D coordinates of a façade. This accuracy is optimistic since the captured images were processed without any control points.

The tryptophan (TRP)-kynurenine (KYN) metabolic pathway is a main player of TRP metabolism through which more than 95% of TRP is catabolized. The pathway is activated by acute and chronic immune responses leading to a wide range of illnesses including cancer, immune diseases, neurodegenerative diseases, and psychiatric disorders. The TRP-KYN pathway synthesizes multifarious metabolites including oxidants, antioxidants, neurotoxins, neuroprotectants, and immunomodulators. The immunomodulators are known to facilitate the immune system towards a tolerogenic state, resulting in chronic low-grade inflammation (LGI) that is commonly present in obesity, poor nutrition, exposer to chemicals or allergens, prodromal stage of various illnesses, and chronic diseases. KYN, kynurenic acid, xanthurenic acid, and cinnabarinic acid are aryl hydrocarbon receptor ligands that serve as immunomodulators. Furthermore, TRP-KYN pathway enzymes are known to be activated by the stress hormone cortisol and inflammatory cytokines, and genotypic variants were observed to contribute to inflammation and thus various diseases. The tryptophan 2,3-dioxygenase, the indoleamine 2, 3-oxygenases, and the kynurenine-3-monooxygenase are main enzymes in the pathway. This review article discusses the TRP-KYN pathway with special emphasis on its interaction with the immune system and the tolerogenic shift towards chronic LGI and overviews the major symptoms, pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines, and toxic and protective KYNs to explore the linkage between chronic LGI, KYNs, and major psychiatric, including depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, substance use disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia, and autism spectrum disorder.

Fresh water springs are unique natural resources in Florida, currently under threat from increasing groundwater pumping and pollution resulting from a variety of sources. This paper estimates current recreation benefits from visiting springs using the travel cost method and elicits residents’ willingness to contribute for springs restoration using the contingent valuation method. It further compares the performance of count data models correcting for endogenous stratification and truncation, and finds that the annual consumer surplus per person per trip is between $20 and $43. Furthermore, visitors are willing to contribute $12 to $14 per person per trip for springs restoration without reducing trip demand.

Electric moped scooter sharing services have recently experienced strong growth rates, particularly in Europe. Due to their compactness, environmental-friendliness and convenience, shared e-mopeds are suitable modes of transport in urban mobility to help reduce the environmental impact. However, its traffic-related, economic and environmental effects are merely represented in academic research. We used passenger car traffic data in Berlin generated by the multi-agent transport simulation framework MATSim to develop a python-based simulation, resembling an e-moped sharing system. Based on the results, a total cost of ownership and a life cycle assessment for fleet sizes of 2,500, 10,000 and 50,000 vehicles were conducted. The results indicate that a substantial part of all passenger car trips in Berlin can be substituted. The larger the fleet, the more and longer trips are replaced. Simultaneously, the efficiency in terms of fleet utilization decreases. The scenario with 10,000 e-mopeds offers the lowest total distance-based costs for sharing operators, whereas a fleet consisting of 2,500 vehicles exhibits the lowest environmental emissions per kilometer driven over the expected lifespan of a shared e-moped. Based on the renewable energy potential for 2050 forecasted by the German Federal Environment Agency, a significant overall decline in environmental impacts can be achieved.

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is bringing evolution with remote monitoring, intelligent analytics, and control of industrial processes. A reference architecture provides the general layout information for the flexible integration of IIoT systems; however, as the industrial world is currently in its initial stage of adopting the full-stack development solutions with IIoT, some challenges need to be addressed. To cope with the rising challenges and provide the blueprint guidelines to develop and implement IIoT in real-time, researchers around the globe have proposed IIoT architectures based on different architectural layers and emerging technologies. In this paper, we first review and compare some widely accepted IIoT reference architectures and present a state-of-the-art review of conceptual and experimental IIoT architectures in literature. We highlight scalability, interoperability, security, privacy, reliability, and low latency as the main IIoT architectural requirements and compare how the current architectures address these challenges. We also highlight the role of emerging technologies in current IIoT architectures to address these requirements and present the literature gap for future research work to address the challenges.

Over the last few decades there has been an exponential growth in IT, motivating IT professionals and scientists to explore new dimensions resulting in the advancement of artificial intelligence and its subcategories like computer vision, deep learning and augmented reality. AR is comparatively a new area which was initially explored for gaming but recently a lot of work has been done in education using AR. Most of this focuses on improving students understanding and motivation. Like any other project, the performance of an AR based project is determined by the customer satisfaction which is usually affected by the theory of triple constraints; cost, time and scope. many studies have shown that most of the projects are under development because they are unable to overcome these constraints and meet project objectives. We were unable to find any notable work done regarding project management for augmented reality systems and application. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a system for management of AR applications which mainly focuses on catering triple constraints to meet desired objectives. Each variable is further divided into subprocesses and by following these processes successful completion of the project can be achieved.

The aim of this article is to propose a core game theory model of transaction costs wherein it is indicated how direct costs determine the probability of loss and subsequent transaction costs. The existence of optimum is proven, and the way in which exposure influences the location of the optimum is demonstrated. The decisions are described as a two-player game and it is discussed how the transaction cost sharing rule determines whether the optimum point of transaction costs is the same as the equilibrium of the game. The dispute between actors regarding changing the share of transaction costs to be paid by each party is modeled by a non-cooperative bargaining game. Requirements of efficient transaction cost sharing rules are defined, and it is posited that solution exists which is not unique. Policy conclusions are also devised based on principles of design of institutions to influence the nature of transaction costs.

AbstractWe investigated the effect of cigarette smoking on pathological staging in clinically low-risk patients. Data of 59 patients who were diagnosed with bladder tumor for the first time and had a single lesion radiologically and endoscopically smaller than 3 cm were investigated retrospectively. 33 patients who smoked were classified as Group I, and 26 patients who did not smoke were classified as Group II. Pathological diagnoses of the patients in both groups were compared. The mean age of the patients were 64.8 (20–86) years. In Group II, 5 (19.2%) were female and 21 (80.8%) were male (p < 0.05). Nine patients (27.3%) in Group I and 18 patients (69.2%) in Group II had Ta disease (p < 0.05). Nineteen patients (57.6%) in Group I and 5 patients (19.2%) in Group II had T₁ disease (p < 0.05). The number of patients with low grade (LG) tumor were 8 (24.2%) and 19 (73.1%) in Group I and in Group II, respectively (p < 0.05). The number of patients with high grade(HG) tumor were 25 (75.8%) and 7 (26.9%) in Group I and in Group II, respectively (p < 0.05). TaHG was detected in 9 (27.3%) patients in Group I. In contrast, no patients in Group II had TaHG disease (p < 0.05). The number of patients with T₁HG was 17(51.5%) patients in Group I and 2 (7.69%) patients in Group II (p < 0.05). Smoking is associated with pathologically HG and stage in patients with first time bladder tumor which is single and smaller than 3 cm.

Historical maps constitute unique sources of retrospective geographic information. Recently, several map archives containing map series covering large spatial and temporal extents have been systematically scanned and made available to the public. The geographic information contained in such data archives allows extending geospatial analysis retrospectively beyond the era of digital cartography. However, given the large data volumes of such archives and the low graphical quality of older map sheets, the processes to extract geographic information need to be automated to the highest degree possible. In order to understand the salient characteristics, data quality variation, and potential challenges in large-scale information extraction tasks, preparatory analytical steps are required to efficiently assess spatio-temporal coverage, approximate map content, and spatial accuracy of such georeferenced map archives across different cartographic scales. Such preparatory steps are often neglected or ignored in the map processing literature but represent highly critical phases that lay the foundation for any subsequent computational analysis and recognition. In this contribution we demonstrate how such preparatory analyses can be conducted using classical analytical and cartographic techniques as well as visual-analytical data mining tools originating from machine learning and data science, exemplified for the United States Geological Survey topographic map and Sanborn fire insurance map archives.

In table tennis competitions the rule violation judgment with the greatest controversy is the height of the ball serve. This is because inaccuracy in the ball height judgment, which results in erroneous judgment, is unavoidable. Thus, we designed an automatic image judgment auxiliary system for table tennis ball height during service in this study. We used a high-speed camera to record the ball toss in the table tennis service. The designed algorithm architecture can automatically search for the ball and the position of the hand action under low light source conditions. The algorithm is mainly divided into hue-saturation-value color space processing and morphology processing using Hough transform to search for the circular ball. Experiment result shows that color segmentation can successfully and accurately determine the ball position under low light conditions. The morphology method can find the position of the hand and help determine the moment when the ball leaves the hand during the service ball toss. Finally, the actual size of the target is used to estimate the actual distance unit represented by the image pixel.

The worldwide interconnected objects, called Internet of Things (IoTs), have been increasingly growing in the last several years. Different social media platforms and devices are continuously generating data about individuals and facilitate the technological and the social convergence of their Internet-based data and services with globalized users. These social and device-related IoTs create rooms for data breaches as such platforms provide ability to collect private and sensitive data. We assert that data breaches are fundamentally failures of access control - most users are too busy or technically ill-equipped to understand access control policy expressions and decisions. We argue that this is symptomatic of globalised societies structured by the conditions of algorithmic modernity; an era in which our data is increasingly interdependent on, and enmeshed with, ever more complex systems and processes that are vulnerable to attack. Ethically managing data breaches is now too complex for current access control systems, such as Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) and Context-Aware Access Control (CAAC). These systems do not provide an explicit mechanism to engage in decision making processes, about who should have access to what data and when, that are involved in data breaches. We argue that a policy ontology will contribute towards the development of Ethical CAAC better suited to attributing accountability for data breaches in the context of algorithmic modernity. We interrogate our proposed Ethical CAAC as a theoretical construct with implications for future policy ontology models and data breach countermeasures. An experimental study on the performance of the proposed framework is carried out with respect to a more generic CAAC framework.

The main aspects of material research: material synthesis, material structure, and material properties, are interrelated. Acquiring atomic structure information of electron beam sensitive materials by electron microscope, such as porous zeolites, organic-inorganic hybrid perovskites, metal-organic frameworks, is an important and challenging task. The difficulties in characterization of the structures will inevitably limit the optimization of their synthesis methods and further improve their performance. The emergence of integrated differential phase contrast scanning transmission electron microscopy (iDPC-STEM), a STEM characterization technique capable of obtaining images with high signal-to-noise ratio under lower doses, has made great breakthroughs in the atomic structure characterization of these materials. This article reviews the developments and applications of iDPC-STEM in electron beam sensitive materials, and provides an outlook on its capabilities and development.

In this paper, a novel pendulum-type accelerometer based on hetero-core fiber optics has been proposed for structural health monitoring targeting large-scale civil infrastructures. Vibration measurement is a non-destructive method for diagnosing the failure of structures by assessing natural frequencies and other vibration patterns. The hetero-core fiber optic sensor utilized in the proposed accelerometer can serve as a displacement sensor with robustness to temperature changes in addition to immunity to electromagnetic interference and chemical corrosions. Thus the hetero-core sensor inside the accelerometer measures applied acceleration by detecting the rotation of an internal pendulum. A series of experiments showed that the hetero-core fiber sensor linearly responded to the rotation angle of the pendulum ranging within ±5°, and furthermore the proposed accelerometer could reproduce the waveform of input vibration in a frequency band of several Hz order.

Exploiting the linguistic knowledge of the source language for neural machine translation (NMT) has recently achieved impressive performance on many large-scale language pairs. However, since the Turkish→English machine translation task is low-resource and the source-side Turkish is morphologically-rich, there are limited resources of bilingual corpora and linguistic information available to further improve the NMT performance. Focusing on the above issues, we propose a multi-source NMT approach that models the word feature in parallel to external linguistic features by using two separate encoders to explicitly incorporate linguistic knowledge into the NMT model. We extend the word embedding layer of the knowledge-based encoder to accommodate for each word’s linguistic annotations in the context. Moreover, we share all parameters across encoders to enhance the representation ability of the NMT model on the source language. Experimental results show that our proposed approach achieves substantial improvements of up to 2.4 and 1.1 BLEU scores in Turkish→English and English→Turkish machine translation tasks, respectively, which points to a promising way to utilize the source-side linguistic knowledge for the low-resource NMT.

A disaster wrecks those affected. It spares many in the affected areas, yet those spared may be indirectly impacted. Specific risks are often inherent within a social system or physical location, but they can also be created due to unavoidable natural or technological hazards. The consequences, however, can be similar in that they wreak havoc in communities and destroy economic systems. The analytical framework of deterrence and coping has ascertained beneficial in many circumstances, but a cost benefit calculation is a must to infer the feasibility of planning strategy and resource allocation. This study points to the Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) of flood management by District Disaster Management Kulgam. The assessment is established on secondary pooled data collected from administration offices, NGOs, published Journals, and local and national newspapers. It also characterised the strategy, the technique adopted, and the sources of flood damage cost information. The totalled benefits report for 78686.18 lakh of rupees, and that of total costs account for 2218.75lakh of rupees. The Benefit-Cost ratio greater than one (>1) indicates that Flood Management in District Kulgam was economically feasible and successfully governed. The State of Jammu and Kashmir put up with necessary prevention and administration measures to break the spell of devastation due to floods to significant status.

The effect of filling velocity on positive macrosegregations in large size steel ingots was studied. Macrosegregation and macro-/micro-structure were characterized on the hot-tops and a portion of the upper section of two ingots. The measurements revealed that segregation features in the two ingots varied as a function of the alloying elements, and that the severity of positive macrosegregation in the casting body was reduced when the filling rate was increased. It was also found that at the higher filling rate, grain morphologies in the first solidified zones of the ingot changed from columnar to equiaxe, and secondary dendrite arm spacing (SDAS) became slightly smaller in the intermediate and final solidified zones. The experimental findings were analyzed in the framework of diffusion and convection controlled solidification, as well as liquid metal flow theories. The solute dependence of segregation features was related to the difference in solid-liquid partition coefficient and diffusion capability of each element in the liquid iron. Calculation of Reynolds numbers (Re) during the filling process, for both ingots, showed that higher filling velocity caused more instable movement of the liquid metal in the initial solidification stage, resulting in the modification of grain morphology, as well as accelerated solidification rate.

This paper is a mini literature review about electromagnetic field’s effects on cells, tissues and new treatment modalities. We have reviewed a papers which have been published in high quality journals in the last 5 years as two authors. This review’s aim is to be a resource for experimental studies about electricity’s effects on cell biology and pathophysiology. As a result of this literature review, we found that especially extremely low electric frequency and intermediate frequency fields have very important pathophysiological effects. We have mentioned four important expressions on this subject; electroporation, electrofusion, electrochemotherapy, gene electrotransference. Two different new treatment approaches have been developed by use of these two important electrical waves. First is tumor treating fields and the other is pulsed electric fields. Most studies in literature have been done with extremely low frequency and pulsed electric fields. In terms of diseases, most studies are about glioblastoma multiforme and malign melanoma.Most studies in literature have been done with extremely low frequency and pulsed electric fields. In terms of diseases, most studies are about glioblastoma and melanoma.

The residential sector in the United States is in need of comprehensive policy-making reforms that concurrently address housing affordability and environmental sustainability. This study investigates the feasibility of state-wide zero-energy affordable housing by analyzing historical data on climate, energy use, and solar system costs in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The hypothesis examined is that the net present cost of implementation of rooftop residential solar systems to achieve zero-energy Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) buildings is lower than the discounted present cost of energy of otherwise identical conventional buildings that run without renewable energy generation systems. The authors propose a generalizable framework for analyzing the feasibility of achieving region- or state-wide zero-energy LIHTC developments. To validate the framework, the authors employ a longitudinal sample of monthly energy use data from 2013-2016 obtained from 310 residential units of 15 LIHTC developments across the state. Based on statistical regression analysis, energy simulation, and simulation-based risk analysis, the authors find that the net present value of zero-energy LIHTC investments can be positive with a low risk. The investment value varies often depending on the zero-energy building definition, weather characteristics, retail price of electricity, and incentive rate. This study can help housing policymakers and industry professionals analyze and benchmark the feasibility of innovative zero-energy housing policies and projects.

Background: New open-source electric-grid planning models have the potential to improve power system planning and bring a wider range of stakeholders into the planning process for next-generation, high-renewable power systems. However, it has not yet been established whether open-source models perform similarly to the more established commercial models for power system analysis. This reduces their credibility and attractiveness to stakeholders, postponing the benefits they could offer. In this paper, we report the first model intercomparison between an open-source power system model and an established commercial production cost model. Results: We compare the open-source Switch 2.0 to GE Energy Consulting’s Multi Area Production Simulation (MAPS) for production-cost modeling, considering hourly operation under 17 scenarios of renewable energy adoption in Hawaii. We find that after configuring Switch with similar inputs to MAPS, the two models agree closely on hourly and annual production from all power sources. Comparing production gave a coefficient of determination of 0.996 across all energy sources and scenarios, indicating that the two models agree on 99.6% of the variation. For individual energy sources, the coefficient of determination was 69–100. Conclusions: Although some disagreement remains between the two models, this work indicates that Switch is a viable choice for renewable integration modeling, at least for the small power systems considered here. Although some disagreement remains between the two models, this work indicates that Switch is a viable choice for renewable integration modeling, at least for the small power systems considered here.

The lean supply chain of construction engineering projects is to achieve the maximum satisfaction of the owners' needs in order to effectively achieve the goal of supply chain management. This paper explores an effective method of lean supply chain cost management for construction engineering projects with target cost management, so that each participating unit on the supply chain node can fully utilizes its core competencies to minimize internal consumption and waste, and achieve the optimal overall efficiency of the supply chain. According to the requirements of the goal planning theory of the construction project company, establish a lean supply chain cost planning system for the construction project, realize the basic model of the lean supply chain cost management of the construction project, and set the target cost from the lean project of the construction project. The technical decomposition is established by the process of cost decomposition and cost pressure transmission and sub-target cost planning.

Low carbon cities are increasingly forming a distinct strand of sustainability literature. Models have been developed to measure the performance of low carbon cities. The purpose of this paper is to formulate a strategy-based model to evaluate current performance and predict future conditions of low carbon cities. It examines the dynamic interrelationships between key performance indicators (KPIs), induces changes to city plan targets and then instantly predicts the outcome of these changes. Designed generic and flexible, the proposed model shows how low carbon targets could be used to guide the transformation of low carbon cities under four strategies: (1) passive intervention, (2) problem solving, (3) trend modifying and (4) opportunity seeking. Further, the model has been applied to 17 cities and then tested on 5 cities: London, New York, Barcelona, Dubai and Istanbul. The paper concludes with policy implications to realign city plans and support low carbon innovation.

In this paper, we draw on recent experiences from the Young Lives study to discuss some of the ethical and practical challenges facing longitudinal cohort studies in low- and middle-income countries in the time of coronavirus. We argue that COVID-19 has instigated an ‘ethics of disruption’ for social researchers across the world, and for longitudinal cohort studies like Young Lives, this requires navigating three core considerations: first, managing research relationships and reciprocity within an observational study design; second, maintaining methodological continuity and consistency across time; and third, balancing an immediate short-term response to COVID-19 against the longer-term perspective. We refer to the study’s plan to implement a new COVID-19 phone survey to illustrate how the team are navigating this altered ethical terrain.

Chronic pain is a serious health concern and potentially debilitating condition, leading to anxiety, depression, reduced productivity and functionality, and poor quality of life. This condition can be even more detrimental and incapacitating in the pediatric patient population. In low and middle income countries (LMICs), pain services are inadequate or unavailable, leaving most of the world's pediatric population with chronic pain untreated. Many of these children in LMICs are suffering without treatment, and often die in pain. Awareness and advocacy for this population must be prioritized. We reviewed the available literature on the chronic pediatric pain burden in LMICs, barriers to treatments, and current efforts to treat these patients.

Primary and secondary cardiovascular prevention is less effective than expected due to the concern about polymedication by professionals and the lack of patient adherence to medications prescribed in the medium and long term. Polypills have been presented as a possible solution. A comprehensive bibliographic review is presented about polypills as mechanisms for facilitating adherence and a proposed guide for the use of polypills for the prevention of cardiovascular risk. 41 articles were included, showing options for the polypill as a method of primary and secondary cardiovascular prevention.The polypill increases therapeutic adherence in the medium and long term, also increasing the therapeutic results compared to the administration of the various drugs separately. Based on the evidence, a flow diagram is proposed for the prescription of a polypill.Polypills increase the effectiveness and adherence of patients to primary and secondary cardiovascular prevention programs, without increasing the cost of the intervention. The use of a polypill in cardiovascular prevention can be effective as a prescription tool.

Recent advance in electric propulsion systems have demonstrated that these engines can be used for for long-duration interplanetary voyages. Constant specific impulse engine described as a thrust-limited engine is an example of this type of engine, processing the ability to operate at a constant level of impulse. The determination of minimum-fuel, planar heliocentric Earth-to-Mars low-thrust trajectories of spacecraft using a constant specific impulse is discussed considering the first-order necessary conditions derived from Lawden’s primer vector theory. The minimum-fuel low-thrust Earth-to-Mars optimization problem is then solved in two-dimensional, heliocentric frame using both indirect and direct methods. In the indirect method, two-point-boundary-value problems are derived to solve boundary value problems for ordinary differential equations. In the direct method, a general-purpose optimal control software called GPOPS-II is adopted to solve these optimal control problems. Numerical examples using two different optimization methods are presented to demonstrate the characteristics of minimum-fuel planar low-thrust trajectories with on-off-on thrust sequences at three chosen flight times and available maximum powers. The results are useful for broad trajectory search in the preliminary phase of mission designs.

In the last two decades, the continuous ever growing demand for energy has determined a significant development in the production of photovoltaic (PV) modules. Anyway, a critical and very important issue in the module design process is the adoption of suitable encapsulant materials and technologies for cell embedding. Therefore, adopted encapsulants have a significant impact on modules efficiency, stability and reliability, and to ensure the unchanged performance of PV modules in time, the encapsulant materials must be selected properly. The selection of encapsulant materials must maintain a good balance between the encapsulant performance in time and costs, related to materials production and technologies for cells embedding. However, the encapsulants must ensure excellent isolation of active photovoltaic elements by the environment, preserving accurately the PV cells against humidity, oxygen and accidental causes that may compromise the PV modules function. This review provides an overview of different encapsulant materials, their main advantages and disadvantages in adoption for PV production, and also in relation to used encapsulant technologies for cell embedding, additives and the interaction of these materials with other PV components.

Identifying group movement patterns of crowds and understanding group behaviors is valuable for urban planners, especially when the groups are special such as tourist groups. In this paper, we present a framework to discover tourist groups and investigate the tourist behaviors using mobile phone call detail records (CDRs). Unlike GPS data, CDRs are relatively poor in spatial resolution with low sampling rates, which makes it a big challenge to identify group members from thousands of tourists. Moreover, since touristic trips are not on a regular basis, no historical data of the specific group can be used to reduce the uncertainty of trajectories. To address such challenges, we propose a method called group movement pattern mining based on similarity (GMPMS) to discover tourist groups. To avoid large amounts of trajectory similarity measurements, snapshots of the trajectories are firstly generated to extract candidate groups containing co-occurring tourists. Then, considering that different groups may follow the same itineraries, additional traveling behavioral features are defined to identify the group members. Finally, with Hainan province as an example, we provide a number of interesting insights of travel behaviors of group tours as well as individual tours, which will be helpful for tourism planning and management.

Highly nonlinear characteristics of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are significantly influenced by the external and internal temperature of the LIB cell. Moreover, cell temperature beyond the manufacturer’s specified safe operating limit could lead to thermal runaway and even fire hazards and safety concerns to operating personnel. Therefore, accurate information of cell internal and surface temperature of LIB is highly crucial for effective thermal management and proper operation of a battery management system (BMS). Accurate temperature information is also essential to BMS for the accurate estimation of various important states of LIB such as state of charge, state of health and so on. High capacity LIB pack, used in electric vehicles and grid-tied stationary energy storage system essentially consists of thousands of individual LIB cells. Therefore, installing a physical sensor at each cell especially at the cell core is not practically feasible from the solution cost, space and weight point of view. A solution is to develop a suitable estimation strategy which led scholars to propose different temperature estimation schemes aiming to establish a balance among accuracy, adaptability, modelling complexity and computational cost. This article presented an exhaustive review of these estimation strategies covering recent developments, current issues, major challenges, and future research recommendations. The prime intention is to provide a detailed guideline to the researchers and industries towards developing a highly accurate, intelligent, adaptive, easy to implement and compute efficient online temperature estimation strategy applicable to health-conscious fast charging and smart onboard BMS.

Ultra Low Temperature Process (ULTP) involve the material cooling in temperatures close to the liquid nitrogen (-196 °C), which is different from the cold-treatment (CT) made in temperatures close to -80 °C. ULTP treatments could raise the tool steel wear resistance through microstructural change that occurs on the material, enhancing, that way, the tools and dies lifetime. To investigate the impact on the wear resistance of tool steel AISI D2, micro abrasive wear tests were carried out and an analysis based on the Archard’s law was considered, evaluating specimen mass loss by laser interferometry. Micro hardness tests, X-ray diffractometry, scanning and optical microscopy and quantitative evaluation of carbides with image analysis were carried out aiming material characterization. Micro-scale abrasion tests shown a wear coefficient k about 1.73E-7 e 2.61E-7 mm3/N.mm to the specimens that received the ULTP phase and 3.12E-7 mm3/N.mm to the conventional thermal treatment, representing a wear resistance increase of 16.3 – 44.5% to cryogenically treated specimens. The results demonstrated a micro hardness improvement, ranging from 0.9 - 4.7% for the cryogenically treated specimens, when compared to the bulk material. This effect is related, mainly, to the retained austenite transformation in martensite and to the increase in the amount of fine secondary carbides dispersed in the martensitic matrixes of cryogenically treated specimens with ULTP. The best wear resistance improvements, on micro-scale, were achieved when the ULTP step is performed immediately after tempering.

In this paper, mean-field type games between two players with backward stochastic dynamics are defined and studied. They make up a class of non-zero-sum differential games where the players' state dynamics solve backward stochastic differential equations (BSDEs) that depend on the marginal distributions of player states. Players try to minimize their individual cost functionals, also depending on the marginal state distributions. Under some regularity conditions, we derive necessary and sufficient conditions for existence of Nash equilibria. Player behavior is illustrated by numerical examples, and is compared to a centrally planned solution where the social cost, the sum of player costs, is minimized. The inefficiency of a Nash equilibrium, compared to socially optimal behavior, is quantified by the so-called price of anarchy. Numerical simulations of the price of anarchy indicate how the improvement in social cost achievable by a central planner depends on problem parameters.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread over the world for more than one year. COVID-19 often develops life-threatening hypoxemia. Endothelial injury caused by the viral infection leads to intravascular coagulation and ventilation-perfusion mismatch. However, besides above pathogenic mechanisms, the role of alveolar edema in the disease progression has not been discussed comprehensively. Since the exudation of pulmonary edema fluid was extremely serious in COVID-19 patients, we bring out a hypothesis that severity of alveolar edema may determine the size of poorly-ventilated area and the blood oxygen content. Treatments to pulmonary edema (alcohol-oxygen vapor therapy and fluid management) may be great helpful for reducing occurrence of severe cases. Given that late mechanical ventilation may cause mucus (edema fluid) to be blown to the deep of the small airways, oxygen therapy should be given at the early stages. The optimal time and SpO₂ threshold for oxygen therapy are also discussed.

In recent years, the discharge of various emerging pollutants, chemicals and dyes in water and wastewater has represented one of the prominent human problems. Since water pollution is directly related to human health, highly resistant and emerging compounds in aquatic environments will pose many potential risks to the health of all living. Therefore, water pollution is a very acute problem that has constantly increased in recent years with the expansion of various industries. Consequently, choosing efficient and innovative wastewater treatment methods to remove contaminants is crucial. Among advanced oxidation processes, electrochemical oxidation (EO) is the most common and effective method for removing persistent pollutants from municipal and industrial wastewater. However, there are still many gaps despite the great progress in using EO to treat real wastewater. This is due to the lack of comprehensive information on the operating parameters which affect the process and its operating costs. In this paper, among various scientific articles, the impact of operational parameters on the EO performances, a comparison between different electrochemical reactor configurations, and a report on general mechanisms of electrochemical oxidation of organic pollutants have been reported. Moreover, an evaluation of cost analysis and energy consumption requirements have also been discussed. Finally, the combination process between EO and another important advanced oxidation technology, PEC, called photoelectrocatalysis (PEC), has shortly been discussed and reviewed. This article showed that there is a direct relationship between important operating parameters with the amount of costs and the final removal efficiency of emerging pollutants. Optimal operating conditions can be achieved by paying special attention to reactor design, which can lead to higher efficiency and more efficient treatment. The rapid development of EO for removing emerging pollutants from impacted water and its combination with other green methods can result in more efficient approaches to face the pressing water pollution challenge.

The consumer’s acceptability of hamburgers elaborated with the flank of culling cows in which the content of salt or fat had been partially replaced was studied. A mixture of potassium chloride, potassium ferrocyanide and sodium ferrocyanide was used as substitutes for the salt. Oat flakes or a mixture of chia and flax seeds were used as substitutes for the fat. The hamburgers were tasted by 34 consumers. Consumers did not detect significant differences between the control and the rest of the formulations. Neither the gender nor the age of the consumers influenced the sensory appraisal. However, many comments regarding texture failures were recorded. Therefore, the substitution of salt and / or fat in the composition of hamburgers made with the flank of cows is a viable alternative for the commercialization of these pieces of low commercial value as long as the texture of the same is adjusted to resemble it to the control.

Background: Chronic lower limb ulcers (CLLU) have an important burden to the individual and the healthcare system. However, there is a lack of information about the cost of CLLU in Argentina.Objective: To determinate the number and cost of consultation and hospitalization associated to CLLU in a public hospital in Argentina. Methods: Retrospective observational study. Cost estimation were calculated based on days of stay, treatments and laboratory tests in a inpatient population and the number of consultations, treatments and laboratory tests, in a outpatient population. Results: In 2013 and 2014, the overall number of consultation with ICD-10 codes was 7,224 and the number of inpatient was 359. The mean age for male and female outpatient consultations was 59.53(±13.06) years and 59.04(±10.93), respectively. For CLLU male and female inpatient, the mean age was 63.9(±10.4) years and 54.5(±8.6) years, respectively. The length of stay was 22.88 days. There was a mean of 0.41 surgeries per patient where 25% were amputations. The mean annual cost in a single public hospital was US$4,053.65 per inpatient and US$3,589.24 per outpatient. Conclusion: Cost information allows new public health policies to reduce socioeconomic burden due to CLLU.

Soil-transmitted helminthiasis (STH), a neglected tropical disease (NTD) remains a major health problem all over the world including Ghana, which has STH prevalence of 25.4%. To control the disease, the government of Ghana currently concentrates on implementing mass drug administration (MDA) efforts focusing only among school-aged children. However, various studies have suggested that focusing on only a specific group for MDA may not be cost-effective. Moreover, some adults such as teachers and school-workers spend large fraction of their time with children, who shed more parasite in environment due to unhygienic behavior, and thus have a higher risk of getting infected as compared to other adults. In this study we use a mathematical model to evaluate age-structured and risk-based policies for implementing MDA while capturing transmission dynamics of STH in Ghana. A cost model was developed that included various costs related to MDA to study cost-effectiveness of current policies of MDA in Ghana against novel policies to control STH in Ghana. We carry out analysis for five different scenarios— I: no MDA (baseline), II: current MDA policy (focusing children) in Ghana, III: MDA for different age groups (adults and children groups) for unlimited budget, IV: MDA for different age groups with limitations of number of individuals treated, and, V: MDA for different groups based on their risk of getting infected (adults school workers (high-risk group), adults non-school workers and children groups). Our results suggest that it might be more cost-effective to allocate treatment through MDA to at least some proportion of adults along with children. In case of unlimited budget, the best strategy in Scenario IV would be to treat approximately 22% of adults and approximately 45% of children. The most cost-effective among the 5 scenarios is suggested through scenario V, where high-risk adults group and children are provided MDA at higher level than low-risk adults. In conclusion, age-structured and risk-based allocation of treatment and resources is crucial to reducing STH load in developing countries.

In response to ever-increasing concerns regarding ecological degradation and societal impact, numerous stakeholders such as non-governmental organisations, government officials, end-users, the mass media, and community activists have compelled business organizations, particularly multi-national companies to lessen harmful greenhouse gases emissions associated with their production activities. Energy sector is one of the biggest harmful greenhouse gases emission producer, hence, decision-makers within the energy sector are forced to promote and build environmental friendly and sustainable power generation plants. To this end, the concept of sustainability in the electricity sector has attracted so much attention from academics and industrial practitioners over the last three decades. Albeit, an important number of sustainability assessment frameworks for electricity generating technologies are found in the current literatures, three major drawbacks have emerged from those frameworks. Firstly, there is a lack of a holistic and comprehensive sustainability assessment framework for different power generation plants. Secondly, from economic aspect, the most used model (Levelised Cost of Electricity) to measure the cost performance of various electricity generating technologies is biased and is not inclusive enough, because, it only considers the capital, Operations and Maintenance, and fuel costs. Hence, snubbing crucial elements to business decision. Lastly, in the current literature, there is no a single sustainability assessment model that considers all the phases of electrical energy’s lifecycle. Considering these flaws, the novelty of this study is the development of a new, holistic theoretical sustainability assessment framework for power generation plants. The developed theoretical model includes 19 impact categories, 52 potential indictors, and 10 end points environmental, economic, and social aspects.

Based on the theory of turbulence, equations are derived for estimations of turbulent fluctuations of the longitudinal and transverse components of the wind velocity during ideal hovering of a quadcopter in a turbulent atmosphere. We present the results of experiments which were carried out on the territory of the Geophysical Observatory of Institute of Monitoring of Climatic and Ecological Systems, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, located in Tomsk Akademgorodok on the territory with complex orography, in a parkland zone with buildings of research institutes and motorways. Time series of turbulent fluctuations of the longitudinal and transverse components of wind velocity fluctuations were received with the use of an automated weather station, and time series of estimates of these components, from data of a DJI Phantom 4 Pro quadcopter during hovering. According to the automated weather station data, anisotropy was observed in one experiment during measurements in the atmosphere, but this phenomenon was not observed in the other experiment: the fluctuation spectra of all components of wind speed fluctuations coincide. The spectra of fluctuations of the longitudinal and transverse wind velocity components based on the automated weather station data and UAV telemetry are presented. The fluctuation spectra of these components for the automated weather station data and quadcopter generally coincide. The behavior of the spectra coincides with the spectrum which corresponds to Kolmogorov–Obukhov “–5/3” law within the inertial range. The turbulent spectra of the wind velocity fluctuations obtained with the use of the automatic weather station and with the unmanned aerial vehicle differ in the high-frequency spectral region.

This study demonstrated that antibiotic residue in milk can be reduced when dairy farmers use Ethno-veterinary Practices (EVP) based on herbal alternatives to prevent and cure common clinical conditions in cattle instead of antibiotics. Of the 220 farmers selected for the study, 140 were trained and motivated to use validated herbal formulations, 80 were kept as control. Milk samples from the selected farmers (except Thirukanurpatti milk society) tested positive for antibiotic residue in the baseline survey. One year after interventions, the milk from 123 (87.86%) farmers out of 140, were without any detectable antibiotic residue, while samples from 11 farmers (7.85%) were low positive for either Beta-lactams or sulphonamides and 6 (4.29%) were positive for Beta lactams and/or sulphonamides. These 17 (11 + 6) farmers had used antibiotics along with herbal formulations. The milk samples from the control groups were positive for beta lactam and sulphonamide. There was suggestive significance of change in knowledge, attitude and practice of EVP among the farmers from Kerala and Tamil Nadu. A progressive reduction in the incidence of mastitis, enteritis, repeat breeding and cowpox were observed from 2016 to 2019 among the cows treated with EVP. Use of herbal alternative also resulted in a significant reduction in health care expenditure of cattle.

This study analyses the short-run hydro generation scheduling for the wind power differences from the contracted schedule. The approach for construction of the joint short-run marginal cost curve for the hydro-wind coordinated generation is proposed and applied on the real example. This joint short-run marginal cost (SRMC) curve is important for its participation in the energy markets and for economic feasibility assessment of such coordination. The approach credibly describes the short-run marginal costs which this coordination bears in “real life”. The approach is based on the duality framework of a convex programming and as a novelty combines the shadow price of risk mitigation capability and the water shadow price. The proposed approach is formulated as a stochastic linear program and tested on the case of the Vinodol hydropower system and the wind farm Vrataruša in Croatia. The result of the case study is a family of 24 joint short-run marginal cost curves.

Based on the data of A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen of China from 2011 to 2018 and the digital inclusive finance index of Peking University (2011-2018), this paper empirically tests the impact of digital finance development on corporate social responsibility in various provinces of China and its impact mechanism. The results show that: (1) the development of digital finance helps to promote the fulfillment of corporate social responsibility; (2) the influence mechanism of the development of digital finance to promote the fulfillment of corporate social responsibility lies in that it reduces the cost of debt financing and leads to the improvement of corporate social responsibility.(3) Further research shows that the positive relationship between digital finance and corporate social responsibility is more significant in private enterprises. At the same time, the impact is more significant in areas with poor market environment. The above research shows that the development of digital finance has a significant positive effect, which will improve the level of corporate social responsibility.

This paper focuses on the non-destructive dielectric measurement for low-loss planar materials with a thickness of less than 3 mm using a large coaxial probe with an outer diameter of 48 mm. The aperture probe calibration procedure required only to make a measurement of the half-space air and three offset shorts. The reflection coefficient for the thin material is measured using a Keysight E5071C network analyzer from 0.3 MHz to 650 MHz and then converted to a relative dielectric constant and tangent loss via closed form capacitance model and lift-off calibration process. Measurement error of dielectric constant, Δε_r is less than 2.5 % from 1 MHz to 400 MHz and the resolution of loss tangent, tan δ measurement is capable of achieving 3×10^-3.

Carbon farming is a capable strategy for more sustainable production of food and other related products. It seeks to produce the diverse array of natural farming methods and marketable products simultaneously. In agroforestry system, carbon sequestration is done by incorporating carbon dioxide (CO2) into plant biomass via photosynthesis. Carbon is, thus, stored in reserves of above-ground biomass, such as timber or branches, and below-ground biomass such as roots, or organic carbon in the soil. In addition to the significance of carbon sequestration in climate change mitigation, soil organic carbon (SOC) is an imperative indicator for the soil health as well as fertility. The change in SOC can explain whether the land use pattern degrades or improves the soil fertility. SOC, found in the soil in the form of soil organic matter (SOM), helps to improve soil health either directly or indirectly. Its direct consequence is related to the process of mineralization. Further, agroforestry is highly capable of generating huge amounts of bio-mass. In fact, agroforestry is believed to be particularly suitable for replenishment of SOC. Therefore, efforts should be made to convince farmers for their resource-use efficiency and soil conserving ability in order to get maximum benefits out of agriculture. According to food and agriculture organization (FAO,) agriculture, forestry, and other land use practices account for 24% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and total global livestock emissions of 7.1 gigatons of CO2-equivalent per year, representing 14.5% of total anthropogenic GHG emissions. Agroforestry system that deliberately integrates trees and crops with livestock in the agricultural production could potentially increase carbon sequestration and decrease GHG emission from the terrestrial ecosystems, thus, helping in global climatic change mitigation. This study, therefore, aimed at clarification about carbon farming, modifications in carbon cycle and carbon sequestration during agricultural development in addition to benefits of agroforestry.

Increasing distributed generation and intermittency, along with the increasing frequency of extreme weather events, impose a serious challenge for the electric power supply security. Understanding the costs of interruption is vital in terms of enhancing the power system infrastructure and planning the distribution grid. On the other hand, customer rights and demand response techniques are further reasons to study the worth of power reliability. In this paper, the authors make use of directional distance function and shadow pricing method for a case study from Finland. The aim is to calculate the cost of one minute of power interruption from the distribution network operator perspective. The sample consists of 78 distribution network operators from Finland with cost and network information between 2013 and 2015.

The purpose of this study was to present the challenges faced when implementing a diet and exercise intervention for low-income older Hispanics with type 2 diabetes with an observational study of recruitment, attendance, and characteristics of Hispanic adults with type 2 diabetes in a community congregate meal site pre and post administration of a diet and exercise intervention. This report evaluates retentions and diabetes self-management beliefs Hispanic adults ≥60 years with type 2 diabetes (n=17) at baseline, and completion of the six-month intervention in terms of the Health Belief Model. There was limited interest in controlling diabetes with diet and exercise. Major barriers included lack of perceived vulnerability to diabetes complications and a belief that medication alone is sufficient to stabilize blood glucose. Environmental barriers included lack of transportation, access to exercise groups, access grocery stores, and limited ability to pay for healthy foods. A lesson learned from this intervention was that the diet and exercise intervention given was insufficient as a cue to action for this population interventions to engage low-income, older Hispanics with diabetes in diet and exercise need to consider strategies to overcome barriers such as health beliefs, transportation issues, lack of access to nutritious food and group exercise classes.

Although commercially-available low-cost air quality sensors have low accuracy, the sensor system are being used to collect the data for the regulation of PM2.5 emission caused by industrial activities or to estimate the personal exposure for PM2.5. In this work, to solve the accuracy problem of low-cost PM sensor, we developed a new PM2.5 calibration model by combining the deep neural network (DNN) optimized in calibration problem and a LSTM optimized in time-dependent characteristics. First, two datasets were generated to test the accuracy performance and generalization performance of the PM2.5 calibration machine learning (ML) model. The PM2.5 concentrations, temperature and humidity by low-cost sensor and gravimetric-based PM2.5 measuring instrument were sampled for a sufficiently long time. The proposed model was compared with benchmark (multiple linear regression model) and low-cost sensor results. For root mean square error (RMSE) for PM2.5 concentrations, the proposed model reduced 41-60% of error compared to the raw data of low-cost sensor, and reduced 30-51% of error compared to the benchmark model. R2 of ML model, MLR and raw data were 93, 80 and 59 %. Also, the developed model still showed consistent calibration performance when calibrated with new sensors in different locations. Low-cost sensors combined with ML model not only can improve the calibration performance of benchmark, but also can be applied to the sensor monitoring systems for various epidemiologic investigations and regulatory decisions.

(1) Background: Although manual therapy for pain relief has been used as an adjunct in treatments for chronic low back pain (CLBP), there is still the belief that a single session of myofascial release would be effective. This study aimed to investigate whether a single session of a specific technique reduces pain and disability. (2) Methods: This was a crossover clinical trial in which 41 participants over 18 years old with CLBP were randomly enrolled into 3 situations - experimental, placebo, control, in a balanced and cross-over manner. The subjects underwent a single session of myofascial release on thoracolumbar fascia and compare it with the control and placebo. Outcome were pain and functionality, evaluated using the numerical pain rating scale (NPRS), pressure pain threshold (PPT) and Oswestry (ODI). (3) Results: There was no effects between-, within-tests, and interaction for all the outcomes, i.e., NPRS (η 2 = 0.32, F = 0.48, p = 0.61), PPT (η2 = 0.73, F = 2.80, p = 0.06), ODI (η 2 = 0.02, F = 0.02, p = 0.97). (4) Conclusion: A single trial of thoracolumbar myofascial release technique was not enough to reduce pain and disability in subjects with CLBP.

Low Back Pain (LBP) is one of the most common problems among adults. The usual physiotherapy treatment is to perform physical exercises. However, some LBP patients have false beliefs regarding their pain and they tend to avoid physical movements which might increase their pain and disability. Virtual Reality (VR) has shown to be an effective intervention in improving motor functions and reducing pain perception. Existing VR interventions for LBP rehabilitation were based on a non-immersive VR, whereas to effectively reduce the pain intensity, we need an immersive VR. In this paper, we introduce the development and evaluation of a serious game called RabbitRun with an immersive experience to engage the patients in a virtual environment and distract them from the pain while performing LBP exercises. The initial usability evaluation results suggest that RabbitRun game is enjoyable and acceptable. The game is easy to play and learn and most of the participants are willing to play the game at home. This solution will enhance the rehabilitation outcome since the patients who are suffering from LBP can use the system at their home and train more for long period of time using a smartphone and low-cost virtual reality device such as Google Cardboard.

This paper reviews the management of the COVID-19 crisis and the difficulty of cost estimation model, comparing centralized management or bureaucratic government coaction and the agile market alternative or spontaneous social coordination. This is a study of Political Economy and Health Economics from the perspective of Austrian Economics. We describe and compare the al-ternative models, which are adapted to the current crisis. The analysis is based on the theorem of the impossibility of the economic calculation under coactive systems, and other principles of economy. In this context we pay also attention to collateral problems of the centralized and coac-tive management. Finally we propose a solution based on dynamic efficiency and the constitutions of wellbeing economics

Low-temperature processed ITO thin films offer the potential of overcoming the doping limit by suppressing the equilibrium of compensating oxygen interstitial defects. To elucidate this potential, electrical properties of Sn-doped In₂O₃ (ITO) thin films are studied in dependence on film thickness. In-operando conductivity and Hall effect measurements during annealing of room temperature deposited films with different film thickness in different environments allow to discriminate between the effects of crystallization, grain growth, donor activation and oxygen diffusion on carrier concentrations and mobilities. At 200 °C, a control of carrier concentration by oxygen incorporation or extraction is only possible for very thin films. The electrical properties of thicker films deposited at room temperature are mostly affected by grain size. The remaining diffusivity of compensating oxygen defects at 200 °C is sufficient to screen the high Fermi level induced by deposition of Al₂O₃ using atomic layer deposition (ALD), which disables the use of defect modulation doping at this temperature. The results indicate that achieving higher carrier concentrations requires a control of the oxygen pressure during deposition in combination with seed layers to enhance crystallinity or the use of near room temperature ALD.

During recent years UAVs have been increasingly used in agriculture and forestry research and application. Nevertheless, most of this work has been devoted to improving accuracy and explanatory power, often at the cost of usability and affordability. We tested a low-cost UAV and a simple workflow to apply four different greenness indices to the monitoring of pine (Pinus sylvestris and P. nigra) after-fire regeneration in a Mediterranean forest. We selected two sites and masured all pines within a pre-selected plot. Winter flights were carried out at each of the sites, at two flight altitudes (50 and 100 m). Automatically normalizing images entered an SfM based photogrammetric software for restitution and the obtained point cloud and orthomosaic processed to get a canopy height model and four different greenness indices. Sum of pine DBH was regressed on summary statistics of greenness indices and canopy height model. ExGI and GCC indices outperformed VARI and GRVI in estimating pine DBH, while canopy height model slightly improved the models. Flight altitude did not severely affect model performance. Our results show that low cost UAVs may improve forest monitoring after disturbance, even in those habitats and situations were resource limitation is an issue.

Iron Doped TiO₂ nanoparticles (Fe-TiO₂) were synthesized and photocatalitically investigated under high and low fluence values of UV-radiation. The Fe-TiO₂ physical characterization was performed using X-ray Powder Diffraction (XRD), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area analysis, Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM), Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy (DRS), and X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) technique. The XPS evidenced that ferric ion (Fe³⁺) was in the lattice of TiO₂ and co-dopants no intentionally added were also present due to the precursors of the synthetic method. The Fe³⁺ concentration played a key role in the photocatalytic generation of hydroxyl radical (•OH) and estriol (E3) degradation. Fe-TiO₂ materials accomplished E3 degradation, and it was found that the catalyst with 0.3 at. % content of Fe (0.3 Fe-TiO₂) enhanced the photocatalytic activity under low UV-irradiation compared with no intentionally Fe-added TiO₂ (zero-iron TiO₂) and Aeroxide^® TiO₂ P25. Furthermore, the enhanced photocatalytic activity of 0.3 Fe-TiO₂ under low UV-irradiation may have applications when radiation intensity must be controlled, as in medical applications, or when strong UV absorbing species are present in water.

A lack of trust in Energy Service Company (ESCo) is the most critical factor affecting the development of Energy Performance Contracting (EPC) in China compared with other constraints. One cannot easily estimate the energy-saving performance of an EPC project. Under that condition, lack of trust may cause the Energy-Consuming Unit (ECU) to suspect the energy-saving performance promised by the ESCo, thus leaving potentially profitable projects without necessary funding. Currently, specific studies taking an across-projects viewpoint on annual energy-saving performance of EPC projects in multiple subsectors objectively and quantitatively are lacking. This paper studies the regression relationships of annual energy-saving quantity in terms of revamping cost and the regression relationships of annual cost saving in terms of revamping cost. The regression results show that there are statistically significant correlations in the above relationships in the nine subsectors investigated. This is significant for ESCos and ECUs because knowledge on energy-saving performance could contribute to EPC investment decisions and trust relationships between ESCos and ECUs. Then a multiple linear regression model of revamping cost is set up to analyze its influencing factors. The model indicates that the subsector the sample belongs to, financing, registered capital of the ESCo, and contract period have significant effects on revamping cost. Thus, policy implications regarding innovation of EE promotion technology, clarifying ESCos’ exit mechanism, innovation of financing mechanism, and improving the market credit environment for promoting investment in EPC projects are provided.