The basic objective of this study is to empirically estimate the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis for four countries from low income, lower middle income, upper middle income and high ...income countries namely Tanzania, Guatemala, China and the USA, respectively. For the empirical investigation an econometric model consists of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions used a proxy for environmental degradation as a response variable, while, income, income square, energy consumption, urbanization growth rate, and trade openness are as regressors. Annual time series data covering the time period 1975–2014 are used for the empirical investigation. Results of Johansen co-integration test indicate that there exists one co-integrating relationship among the variables in the case of the USA and China, while in the case of Tanzania and Guatemala, there exist two co-integrating linkages. Similarly, the Pearson correlation result among the five variables shows that energy consumption has a significant positive relationship with trade openness and CO2 emissions in Tanzania, the USA, Guatemala and China, whereas, a significant negative relationship with economic growth in all these countries has been observed. The empirical results also reveal that in the case of Tanzania and China, trade openness has a significant positive relationship with environmental degradation, while in case of the USA and Guatemala, the correlation with urbanization growth rate is found significant with a negative sign. The ordinary least square result supports an EKC hypothesis for low and lower middle income countries. However, the study fails to find any support for the validity of an EKC hypothesis for upper middle income and high income countries during the period under the study.
The stability margin is an important attribute for the robustness analysis of the closed loop in a control system design, which indicates the tolerant-ability of the closed-loop stability to system ...uncertainty (or fault). Seeking to develop an advanced data-driven monitoring and management framework for control performance (especially for robust stability) of the closed-loop system, this paper presents a study on the data-driven realization of the closed-loop stability margin, and its application to control-performance-oriented process monitoring. Specifically, without identifying the system parameters, a data-driven realization of the stability margin is first determined based on the identified multiplication operator of the closed-loop transfer function matrices using time-domain closed-loop measurements. Second, a control-performance-oriented process monitoring approach is proposed based on the determined data-driven realization of the stability margin. The contributions of this paper will bridge the gap between the model-based robustness analysis/design and the data-driven techniques for the future research. The main results of this paper are verified and demonstrated through the case studies on a dc motor benchmark system.
The main purpose of this paper is to find the effects of financial development, income inequality, energy usage, and per capita GDP on carbon dioxide (CO
2
) emissions as well the environmental ...Kuznets curve (EKC) for the three developing Asian countries—Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. Panel data during the period 1980–2014 and the Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence, and Technology model with fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) are employed for empirical investigation. The results show that financial development has a significant negative relationship with CO
2
emission in the three selected Asian countries with the exception of India. The results further reveal that income inequality in Pakistan and India reduce CO
2
emission, while the result for Bangladesh is opposite. Likewise, energy usage has a significant positive effect on CO
2
emission in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India. Our empirical analysis based on long-run and short-run elasticity appraisal suggests the validation of the EKC in Pakistan and India. The study findings recommend an important policy insinuation. The study suggests introducing a motivational campaign for the inhabitant towards utilization of high-efficiency electrical appliances, constructing mutual cooperation for economic development rather involve in winning development race, and introducing effective pollution absorption measures along with big projects.
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune inflammatory disorder. Highly reactive oxygen free radicals are believed to be involved in the pathogenesis of the disease. In this study, RA patients were ...sub-grouped depending upon the presence or absence of rheumatoid factor, disease activity score and disease duration. RA Patients (120) and healthy controls (53) were evaluated for the oxidant-antioxidant status by monitoring ROS production, biomarkers of lipid peroxidation, protein oxidation and DNA damage. The level of various enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidants was also monitored. Correlation analysis was also performed for analysing the association between ROS and various other parameters.
Intracellular ROS formation, lipid peroxidation (MDA level), protein oxidation (carbonyl level and thiol level) and DNA damage were detected in the blood of RA patients. Antioxidant status was evaluated by FRAP assay, DPPH reduction assay and enzymatic (SOD, catalase, GST, GR) and non-enzymatic (vitamin C and GSH) antioxidants.
RA patients showed a higher ROS production, increased lipid peroxidation, protein oxidation and DNA damage. A significant decline in the ferric reducing ability, DPPH radical quenching ability and the levels of antioxidants has also been observed. Significant correlation has been found between ROS and various other parameters studied.
RA patients showed a marked increase in ROS formation, lipid peroxidation, protein oxidation, DNA damage and decrease in the activity of antioxidant defence system leading to oxidative stress which may contribute to tissue damage and hence to the chronicity of the disease.
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic, inflammatory autoimmune disease of unknown etiology. It is characterized by the presence of rheumatoid factor and anti-citrullinated peptide antibodies. ...Initial phase of RA involves the activation of both T and B cells. Cytokines have a crucial role in the pathophysiology of RA as pro-inflammatory cytokines such as TNFα, IL-1, IL-17 stimulates inflammation and degradation of bone and cartilage. There occurs an imbalance between the pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokine activities which leads to multisystem immune complications. There occurs a decline in the number of Treg cells which may also play an important role in pathophysiology of the disease. In RA patients, serum or plasma level of cytokines may indicate the severity of disease. Cytokine gene polymorphism could be used as markers of susceptibility and severity of RA. Anti-cytokine agents seem to emerge as potent drug molecules to treat RA. Many clinical trials are ongoing and several positive results have been obtained. There is a need to develop potential anti-cytokine agents that target numerous pathways involved in the pathogenesis of RA. This review article describes the effector functions of pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines and the role of cytokine gene polymorphism in the pathogenesis of RA. Anti-cytokine agents that are currently available and those that are still in clinical trials have also been summarized.
•Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune, inflammatory and multisystem disorder which is characterised by the inflammation of synovial membrane.•Predominance of pro-inflammatory cytokines over anti-inflammatory cytokines occurs.•Role of various pro and anti-inflammatory cytokines in the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis have been discussed.•Cytokine gene polymorphism could be used as markers of susceptibility and severity of RA.•Anti-cytokine agents that are currently available and those that are still in clinical trials have also been summarized.
The role of energy cannot be passed over in the process of economic growth and development in any economy. China consumes colossal quantity of energy; thus, the central objectives of this study is to ...empirically evaluate the linkages among energy use, environment by CO
2
emissions, human health by health expenditures, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows, and real GDP per capita used for economic growth over the period of 1995–2016 for China. The nature of the data directed to employ the Canonical cointegrating regression (CCR) method for unknown parameter estimation. Four equations have estimated namely for FDI, health, environment, and economic growth. The result for China during the period under the study reveals that energy consumption has significant positive impact on FDI, health, environment, and economic growth. The study results suggest that policy makers need to chalk out effective policy for effective utilization of energy so as to encourage permissible economic growth and development in China.
Time delays, model uncertainties, faults, and disturbances are frequently the main causes of performance degradation and instability in industrial process control. This article presents a ...fault-tolerant robust model-predictive control design for processes that involve the above effects and process constraints. The uncertainties are modeled into a polytopic affine form based on variations in the system's parameters. A new model based on augmentation of the state variables and tracking error is used that provides increased degrees of freedom for the control design and guarantees tracking performance. A parameter-dependent Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional is used to design a state-feedback control that reduces the conservatism of the conventional approach and ensures robust stability and tracking performance of the closed-loop system. At each sampling instant, a control action is computed by solving an online constrained optimization problem that minimizes the upper bound of the "worst-case" performance index. Finally, the proposed framework is employed for the fault-tolerant control of a continuous stirred tank reactor to demonstrate its effectiveness in mitigating actuator faults and tracking the desired set point.
This paper deals with data-driven fault diagnosis of three-phase induction motor. The tools from subspace identification based data-driven scheme are utilized to design a framework of fault detection ...and isolation. The fault detection scheme is so designed that it caters for even small magnitude faults. In order to discriminate different faults, a fault isolation algorithm is proposed. Isolation thresholds are designed. The results show the effectiveness of the proposed schemes.
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune inflammatory disorder. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) and pro-inflammatory cytokines have been believed to be involved in the etiopathogenesis of the ...disease. The aim of the study was to determine the correlation of inflammatory cytokines with 25-hydroxy vitamin D and ROS.
100 RA patients and 50 healthy age and sex matched individuals were included in the study. Patients were further divided on the basis of presence or absence of rheumatoid factor and disease severity. Serum 25-hydroxy vitamin D levels were monitored by chemiluminescent immunoassay. 10% hematocrit was used to detect the level of ROS by spectro fluorometer. The levels of inflammatory cytokines (TNF-α, IL-1β, IL-6, IL-10 and IL-17) were determined in plasma by ELISA.
The level of 25-hydroxy vitamin D was found to be decreased in RA patients in comparison to the control group. However the level of ROS and inflammatory cytokines were found to be elevated in RA patients in comparison with the healthy controls, with the increase being more pronounced in seropositive and RA patients having high disease severity. Inflammatory cytokines showed negative correlation with 25-hydroxy vitamin D and positive correlation with ROS.
This study for the first time shows the association of inflammatory cytokines with 25-hydroxy vitamin D and ROS in RA patients. The results suggest that 25-hydroxy vitamin D being an immune modulator is decreased in the serum of RA patients. Further ROS and cytokines play an important role in the pathogenesis of RA and are responsible for increasing the severity of disease.
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