The aim of the study is to estimate the nexus between energy insecurity and energy poverty with the role of climate change and other environmental concerns. We used DEA like WP methods and properties ...of MCDA, a most common form of data envelopment analysis (DEA) to estimate the nexus between constructs. This paper presents a measurement and analysis of G7 countries’ energy, economic, social, and environmental performance associated with energy poverty indexes. The study used the multiple, comprehensive, and relevant set of indicators, including energy economics and environmental consideration of energy poverty. The net energy consumption of al G7 economies is equal to 34 percent of the entire world along with the net estimate GDP score of around 50 percent. Using DEA modelling and estimation technique, our research presented valuable insights for readers, theorists and policy makers on energy, environment, energy poverty and climate change mitigation. For this reasons, all these indicators combined in a mathematical composite indicator to measure energy, economic, social, and environmental performance index (EPI). Results show that Canada has the highest EPII score, which shows that Canada’s capacity to deal with energy self-sufficiency, economic development, and environmental performance is greater than the other G7 countries. France and Italy rank second and third. Japan comes next with 0.50 EPI scores, while the USA has the lowest average EPI score environment vulnerable even though have higher economic development among the G7 group countries. We suggest a policy framework to strengthen the subject matter of the study.
Income inequality, poverty, and economic growth are defined as an economy's exposure to exogenous shocks arising out of poverty. The study used various econometric estimations to measure the effect ...of inequality and poverty on economic development during 1990 to 2016 in Vietnam. Various econometric estimation tests confirmed the presence of a long-run association between inequality and poverty, and economic growth is the matter of poverty headcount ratio in Vietnam. When we added the investment-to-GDP ratio and the number of years in education, it decreases by -0.144. This is reduced to -0.05 when log population growth rate was added while the employment, the coefficient decreases to -0.04 and becomes statistically insignificant. We found a negative impact of poverty and we reassess the hypothesis's emphasis on inequality and poverty and their combining effect of inclusive economic growth. Interestingly our results verify the previous findings that inequality and poverty show a negative impact on economic growth. The negative impact of poverty and inequality on economic growth appears to be concentrated at the high poverty level. These findings recommend that poverty reduction policies should be beneficial in encouraging economic growth even if they do not decrease income inequality.
In the present review, we focused on the fundamental concepts of hydrogels—classification, the polymers involved, synthesis methods, types of hydrogels, properties, and applications of the hydrogel. ...Hydrogels can be synthesized from natural polymers, synthetic polymers, polymerizable synthetic monomers, and a combination of natural and synthetic polymers. Synthesis of hydrogels involves physical, chemical, and hybrid bonding. The bonding is formed via different routes, such as solution casting, solution mixing, bulk polymerization, free radical mechanism, radiation method, and interpenetrating network formation. The synthesized hydrogels have significant properties, such as mechanical strength, biocompatibility, biodegradability, swellability, and stimuli sensitivity. These properties are substantial for electrochemical and biomedical applications. Furthermore, this review emphasizes flexible and self-healable hydrogels as electrolytes for energy storage and energy conversion applications. Insufficient adhesiveness (less interfacial interaction) between electrodes and electrolytes and mechanical strength pose serious challenges, such as delamination of the supercapacitors, batteries, and solar cells. Owing to smart and aqueous hydrogels, robust mechanical strength, adhesiveness, stretchability, strain sensitivity, and self-healability are the critical factors that can identify the reliability and robustness of the energy storage and conversion devices. These devices are highly efficient and convenient for smart, light-weight, foldable electronics and modern pollution-free transportation in the current decade.
A compact, high performance, and novel-shaped ultra-wideband (UWB) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna with low mutual coupling is presented in this paper. The proposed antenna consists of ...two radiating elements with shared ground plane having an area of 50 x 30 mm 2 . F-shaped stubs are introduced in the shared ground plane of the proposed antenna to produce high isolation between the MIMO antenna elements. The designed MIMO antenna has very low mutual coupling of (S 21 <; -20 dB), low envelop correlation coefficient (ECC <; 0.04), high diversity gain (DG > 7.4 dB), high multiplexing efficiency (η Mux > -3.5), and high peak gain over the entire UWB frequencies. The antenna performance is studied in terms of S-Parameters, radiation properties, peak gain, diversity gain, envelop correlation coefficient, and multiplexing efficiency. A good agreement between the simulated and measured results is observed.
To date, there is no such scale that may precisely measure mores of the customer base for the ecotourism industry. Therefore, a thematic analysis of literature has been conducted by examining various ...good quality research works on intrinsic characteristics eliciting pro-environmental actions. Based upon the thematic analysis, a new scale of measure has been proposed with the help of 17 scholars and 15 practitioners hailing from different countries by mutually agreed intended meanings and breadth of the theoretical concepts. The new scale has 4 dimensions comprising a pool of 32 items, which has been empirically validated through the data collected from 268 Malaysian tourists. The dimensions are: sense of obligation to care for the natural environment, sense of obligation to practice eco-friendly activities, sense of obligation to purchase eco-friendly products, and sense of obligation to support eco-friendly inventions. The theoretical and managerial implications together with research limitations have been discussed.
There has been significant progress in the last few decades in addressing the biomedical applications of polymer hydrogels. Particularly, stimuli responsive hydrogels have been inspected as elegant ...drug delivery systems capable to deliver at the appropriate site of action within the specific time. The present work describes the synthesis of pH responsive semi-interpenetrating network (semi-IPN) hydrogels of N-succinyl-chitosan (NSC) via Schiff base mechanism using glutaraldehyde as a crosslinking agent and Poly (acrylamide-co-acrylic acid)(Poly (AAm-co-AA)) was embedded within the N-succinyl chitosan network. The physico-chemical interactions were characterized by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM). The synthesized hydrogels constitute porous structure. The swelling ability was analyzed in physiological mediums of pH 7.4 and pH 1.2 at 37°C. Swelling properties of formulations with various amounts of NSC/ Poly (AAm-co-AA) and crosslinking agent at pH 7.4 and pH 1.2 were investigated. Hydrogels showed higher swelling ratios at pH 7.4 while lower at pH 1.2. Swelling kinetics and diffusion parameters were also determined. Drug loading, encapsulation efficiency, and in vitro release of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) from the synthesized hydrogels were observed. In vitro release profile revealed the significant influence of pH, amount of NSC, Poly (AAm-co-AA), and crosslinking agent on the release of 5-FU. Accordingly, rapid and large release of drug was observed at pH 7.4 than at pH 1.2. The maximum encapsulation efficiency and release of 5-FU from SP2 were found to be 72.45% and 85.99%, respectively. Kinetics of drug release suggested controlled release mechanism of 5-FU is according to trend of non-Fickian. From the above results, it can be concluded that the synthesized hydrogels have capability to adapt their potential exploitation as targeted oral drug delivery carriers.
This study aims to determine the moderating role of IT capability between green intellectual capital (GIC) and business sustainability in China’s manufacturing sector. A quantitative analysis ...approach is applied to the primary data collected through a close-ended survey questionnaire from 1000 supply chain employees of China’s manufacturing industry. Results revealed that the association and effect of GIC on the business sustainability of Chinese manufacturing companies were statistically significant, while the moderating role of IT capability between GIC and business sustainability was also found. Notably, all variables indicating GIC (i.e., green human capital (GHC), green structural capital (GSC), and green relationship capital (GRC)) affected business sustainability positively and significantly, whereas the moderation of IT capability was specific to GSC and GRC. Hence, it has been recommended to the Chinese manufacturing companies to integrate IT infrastructure in their firms to enhance business sustainability. However, this research was limited to the Chinese manufacturing sector and cannot be generalized to other sectors or countries.
The current paper investigates the sustainability growth problem in the USA and evaluating the co-integration relationship among all variables, including oil, carbon emission, and consumption of ...energy. We also determine the impacts of energy consumption on the USA economic growth, government spending, and trade openness. We used the co-integration and popular lag model (ARDL) to find the long-term and short-term relationships between all study variables. The empirical results show that (1) the crude oil prices increase and adverse impact on energy demand and government expenditure during the study periods, and CO
2
emission negatively affects USA economic growth. In addition, (2) the innovative accounting method (ICA) results, we used further research to research the causality between study variables. The empirical results propose that oil prices affect the country’s economy responsible for more energy consumption, and the causal effect between consumption of energy and economic growth is not relevant. Wastage of energy allows the system to produce more CO
2
emissions. Model results find that the one-sided causal effects of economic growth and CO
2
. We see during the analyses that (CO
2
) emissions will negatively impact the country’s economy. Therefore, country policymakers are expected to change fossil fuel energy to non-fossil fuel energy as an essential component of the USA’s economic growth policies.
This article presents the effect of different calcination temperatures on the structural, morphological and capacitance of nickel phosphate (Ni
3
(PO
4
)
2
) as an electrode material for ...supercapacitor applications. Ni
3
(PO
4
)
2
was synthesized
via
a sonochemical method followed by calcination at different temperatures (300, 600 and 900 °C, denoted as N300, N600 and N900, respectively). The phase structure and purity of Ni
3
(PO
4
)
2
were confirmed by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) analysis. The surface morphologies showed that the particle size increased with increasing the calcination temperatures. The electrochemical performance of N300, N600 and N900 were investigated using cyclic voltammetry (CV) and galvanostatic charge-discharge (GCD) in a 1 M KOH electrolyte. It was found that N300 exhibited the maximum specific capacity of 620 C g
−1
at 0.4 A g
−1
, which was significantly higher than N600 (46 C g
−1
) and N900 (14 C g
−1
). Here, the enhanced electrochemical performance was obtained due to the amorphous structure and augmentation of the redox active sites of the N300 particles. Additionally, the fabricated N300//activated carbon based asymmetric supercapacitor can be cycled reversibly at a cell voltage of 1.45 V. The device exhibited an energy density of 76 W h kg
−1
and a power density of 599 W kg
−1
with life cycles of 88.5% capacitance retention after 3000 cycles.
This article presents the effect of different calcination temperatures on the structural, morphological and capacitance of nickel phosphate (Ni
3
(PO
4
)
2
) as an electrode material for supercapacitor applications.
This paper presents a compact, uni-planer wide band Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) antenna. The designed antenna array has a compact size of (26mm x 31mm) covering a wide frequency band from ...3.1GHz - 11GHz. A partial ground plane shared by two radiating patches is used. A ground stub and a single column Electromagnetic Bandgap (EBG) structure in between the two radiating patches results in very low mutual coupling in the designed antenna. The proposed MIMO-antenna was evaluated through different performance metric indicators like channel capacity loss, far-field radiation pattern, S-parameters, envelope correlation coefficient, peak gain, diversity-gain and radiation efficiency. Our designed MIMO antenna has a very high isolation amongst the MIMO antennas (S21 < -25dB), a high Diversity-Gain (DG > 9.995 dB), a very low Envelope Co-relation Coefficient of (ECC < 0.001) and low Channel-Capacity-Loss (CCL < 0.1bits/s/Hz). The said antenna has an average radiation efficiency of 85.5% and a peak gain of (5.67dB) within the ultra-wideband (UWB) spectrum. A 0.8mm thick FR-4 substrate is used to fabricate the MIMO-antenna and tested in an anechoic chamber. The measured results closely match with the simulated results.