As a response to the topic of how financial stability might be used to effectively finance for the mitigation of climate change and climate risks, it is important to look at the carbon risk that is ...still present in G-5 nations. The goal of our research is to determine the impact of financial stability on climate risk in order to effectively manage climate mitigation efforts. A technique called GMM is used to achieve this goal. Climate change mitigation was found to be substantial at 18 percent, while financial stability and carbon hazards were found significant at 21 percent, according to the conclusions of the study. Furthermore, the G-5 countries’ 19.5% correlation between financial stability and emissions drift, which raises climate change concerns, is noteworthy. In order to implement green economic recovery methods, one of the most strongly regarded approaches to mitigating climate change and ensuring long-term financial potential at the national scale, a country’s financial stability is required. The research on green economic expansion also offers the associated stakeholders with detailed policy implications on this relevance.
This paper seeks to critically study the perceived impacts of the exploration of hydrocarbons in selected coastal communities in the Western region, the oil and gas industry benefits to local ...communities, and to determine whether hydrocarbon development is a means for sustainable development. The study uses both quantitative and qualitative approaches using a questionnaire survey, key informant interview, and focus group discussion tools to understand the impact of oil and gas exploration and production in selected affected communities along the coast of Ghana. The activities of oil production and exploration impact negatively on communities; it also leads to a sharp increase in food prices thereby increasing their costs of living. The activity has also caused a decline in fish catch levels which happens to be the main economic activity as a result of exclusion zones created by oil companies which limited the extent fishermen can go fishing. In terms of infrastructure, the three communities are lacking, 77% of respondents from Princess Town hold the view that there is no motorable road linking their community in the next town and 60% from Aketakyi also hold the same view. Infrastructure such as roads, schools, water provision, and clinics are woefully provided in these communities.
Inguinal hernia repair is one of the commonest general surgical procedures performed worldwide. Laparoscopic repair is associated with faster recovery, less post operative pain and comparable rates ...of recurrence. Using the stapling devices increases post TAPP chronic groin pain. We conducted a prospective trial for laparoscopic TAPP inguinal hernia repair on 43 patients in which we did not fix the mesh. The primary purpose of this study was to examine the rate of recurrence and chronic groin pain in patients undergoing TAPP mesh hernia repair for inguinal hernia. We observed that our rates of recurrence and chronic groin pain are comparable to those described previously in the literature. We concluded that laparoscopic inguinal hernia repair by TAPP approach can be done with acceptable rates of recurrences and decreased rates of post operative chronic groin pain.
Due to the sheer global energy crisis, concerns about fuel exhaustion, electricity shortages, and global warming are becoming increasingly severe. Solar and wind energy, which are clean and ...renewable, provide solutions to these problems through distributed generators. Microgrids, as an essential interface to connect the power produced by renewable energy resources-based distributed generators to the power system, have become a research hotspot. Modern research in the field of microgrids has focused on the integration of microgrid technology at the load level. Due to the complexity of protection and control of multiple interconnected distributed generators, the traditional power grids are now outmoded. Microgrids are feasible alternatives to the conventional grid since they provide an integrating platform for micro-resources-based distributed generators, storage equipment, loads, and voltage source converters at the user end, all within a compact footprint. A microgrid can be architected to function either in grid-connected or standalone mode, depending upon the generation, integration potential to the main grid, and consumers' requirements. The amalgamation of distributed energy resources-based microgrids to the conventional power system is giving rise to a new power framework. Nevertheless, the grids' control, protection, operational stability, and reliability are major concerns. There has yet to be an effective real-time implementation and commercialization of micro-grids. This review article summarizes various concerns associated with microgrids' technical and economic aspects and challenges, power flow controllers, microgrids' role in smart grid development, main flaws, and future perspectives.
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The hybrid conducting polymers (HCPs) possesses unusual properties of both conducting polymers (CPs) and organic/inorganic nanoparticles, which drawn much attraction to the scientist ...and researchers. The processing of HCPs have helped in overcoming the drawbacks associated with CPs such as poor processability, solubility, stability and low yield. In view of this, the present review article highlights the important synthesis techniques of HCPs and their conduction mechanism. Additionally, much attention has been paid to their diverse applications in energy storage devices, EMI shielding, sensors, biomedicals, anti-corrosive coatings. Finally, the future prospects and current challenges of such polymers have also been overviewed.
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is an incurable neurodegenerative disorder accounting for 70%–80% dementia cases worldwide. Although, research on AD has increased in recent years, however, the complexity ...associated with brain structure and functions makes the early diagnosis of this disease a challenging task. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) is a neuroimaging technology that has been widely used to study the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases. In literature, the computer-aided diagnosis of AD is limited to binary classification or diagnosis of AD and MCI stages. However, its applicability to diagnose multiple progressive stages of AD is relatively under-studied. This study explores the effectiveness of rs-fMRI for multi-class classification of AD and its associated stages including CN, SMC, EMCI, MCI, LMCI, and AD. A longitudinal cohort of resting-state fMRI of 138 subjects (25 CN, 25 SMC, 25 EMCI, 25 LMCI, 13 MCI, and 25 AD) from Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) is studied. To provide a better insight into deep learning approaches and their applications to AD classification, we investigate ResNet-18 architecture in detail. We consider the training of the network from scratch by using single-channel input as well as performed transfer learning with and without fine-tuning using an extended network architecture. We experimented with residual neural networks to perform AD classification task and compared it with former research in this domain. The performance of the models is evaluated using precision, recall, f1-measure, AUC and ROC curves. We found that our networks were able to significantly classify the subjects. We achieved improved results with our fine-tuned model for all the AD stages with an accuracy of 100%, 96.85%, 97.38%, 97.43%, 97.40% and 98.01% for CN, SMC, EMCI, LMCI, MCI, and AD respectively. However, in terms of overall performance, we achieved state-of-the-art results with an average accuracy of 97.92% and 97.88% for off-the-shelf and fine-tuned models respectively. The Analysis of results indicate that classification and prediction of neurodegenerative brain disorders such as AD using functional magnetic resonance imaging and advanced deep learning methods is promising for clinical decision making and have the potential to assist in early diagnosis of AD and its associated stages.
Bacteriophages have been extensively investigated due to their prominent role in the virulence and resistance of pathogenic bacteria. However, little attention has been given to the non-pathogenic
...Bacillus
phages, and their role in the ecological bacteria genome is overlooked. In the present study, we characterized two
Bacillus
phages with a linear DNA genome of 33.6 kb with 44.83% GC contents and 129.3 kb with 34.70% GC contents. A total of 46 and 175 putative coding DNA sequences (CDS) were identified in prophage 1 (P1) and prophage 2 (P2), respectively, with no tRNA genes. Comparative genome sequence analysis revealed that P1 shares eight CDS with phage Jimmer 2 (NC-041976), and phage Osiris (NC-028969), and six with phage phi CT9441A (NC-029022). On the other hand, P2 showed high similarity with Bacill_SPbeta_NC_001884 and
Bacillus
phage phi 105. Further, genome analysis indicates several horizontal gene transfer events in both phages during the evolution process. In addition, we detected two CRISPR-Cas systems for the first time in
B. subtilis
. The identified CRISPR system consists of 24 and 25 direct repeats and integrase coding genes, while the
cas
gene which encodes Cas protein involved in the cleavage of a target sequence is missing. These findings will expand the current knowledge of soil phages as well as help to develop a new perspective for investigating more ecological phages to understand their role in bacterial communities and diversity.
Barium ferrite encapsulated polythiophene (BaFe12O19/PTh) nanocomposite has been synthesized to analyse electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding. The morphological analysis of the synthesized ...composites has been investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), which confirmed the encapsulation of BaFe12O19 nanoparticles by PTh forming a core-shell structure. Highest loading of BaFe12O19 in composite (NC-100 i.e. BaFe12O19:PTh = 1:1) exhibits excellent magnetic properties with a magnetic moment and coercivity of 25.78 emu/gm and 2.5 kOe, respectively. Microwave shielding behaviour of the nanocomposite samples has been tested in X-band region by vector network analyser. Highest −43.27 dB shielding effectiveness at 11.65 GHz has been obtained in NC-100 composite. The excellent shielding effectiveness is due to the synergistic effect of dielectric and magnetic loss of the nanocomposite. These results suggest that the BaFe12O19/PTh nanocomposite (NC-100) exhibited superior EMI shielding properties and find wider application as low cost, high performance, lightweight microwave absorbing material.
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•Synthesis of BaFe12O19/PTh nanocomposite by in-situ emulsion polymerization.•The nanocomposite exhibits excellent magnetic and thermal properties.•EMI shielding properties the nanocomposite has been investigated in the X-band.•Maximum shielding effectiveness of −43.27 dB at 11.65 GHz has been obtained.
The electronic and communication devices such as mobile, laptop, and radio ease our day-to-day life. However, these devices emit harmful radiation, which affects human health and the environment. ...Therefore, to prevent such radiation-based pollution and provide a safer working environment, viable and promising EMI shielding materials have been investigated. Keeping this in mind, the present work reports the relatively low-temperature synthesis of bismuth-doped barium ferrite (BaBi
x
Fe
12−
x
O
19
, Bi-BFO) nanoparticles and their nanocomposite via sol–gel and in situ emulsion polymerization approaches for their application in EMI shielding material. The influence of Bi-doping on phase purity, morphology, structure, and thermal behavior has been explored. The EMI shielding properties of these materials have been investigated in the X-band (8.2–12.4 GHz) region. The composite (Bi-BFO:PT = 2:1 Bi-BFO/PTh-21) with 1 mm thickness exhibited maximum shielding effectiveness (SE) of − 47.12 dB in the X-band region. The high shielding activity is mainly due to the efficient complementarities between the magnetic and dielectric loss. The doping of Bi in barium ferrite results in the increase in electrical polarization that led to the high dielectric loss, causing higher absorption of electromagnetic (EM) waves. These studies suggest that the nanocomposite may find its scope as an excellent microwave absorber for a wide frequency region.
Graphic abstract
Intelligent Fault-Tolerant Control (IFTC) refers to the applications of machine learning algorithms for fault diagnosis and design of Fault-Tolerant Control (FTC). The overall goal of the FTC is to ...accommodate defects in the system components while they are in use and maintain stability with little to no performance reduction. These systems are crucial for mission-critical and safety-related applications where the safety of people is at stake and service continuity is crucial. In this review paper, a systematic study has been done for the development of FTC with machine learning, deep learning, and transfer learning algorithms. The challenges and limitations faced with their possible solutions through machine learning theories for the IFTC model are lined up. This paper guides researchers on the different possible types of machine learning algorithms and their advanced forms like deep learning and transfer learning. The differences among these are highlighted by the challenges and limitations of each. The paper is significant such that most of the important literature references from the Scopus database particularly related to important electrical and mechanical industrial problems have been discussed to guide the researchers who want to apply IFTC for specific industrial problems, being the research gap. Finally, future research directions for the development of IFTC are highlighted.
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