•Circular Supply Chain (CSC) framework for Electric Vehicle Battery EoL management.•Assessment of information requirements in the CSC domain.•Definition of hierarchical communication levels for ...Reverse Logistics.•Study, selection and allocation of IoT communication standards at each level.•Heterogeneous IoT communications network deployment in the CSC for WEEE recovery.
The rapid growth in the sales of electric and electronic devices over recent decades is generating worldwide concern about the management of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE). New methodologies to extend the useful life of products have long been sought, accelerating the shift from a linear to a Circular Economy (CE). When products reach the End-of-Life (EoL) stage, the Reverse Supply Chain (RSC) is responsible for managing operations, with greater efforts being needed to improve the associated information infrastructure. In fact, this has become increasingly feasible due to the emergence of a new digital revolution led by the Internet of Things (IoT). To shed light on this matter, we propose the Circular Supply Chain (CSC) framework for EoL management aimed at satisfying the information infrastructure requirements in a particular scenario for the recovery of Electric Vehicle Battery (EVB) packs. We present a qualitative evaluation of the CSC information requirements, and the capabilities of IoT to satisfy them. As a result, a heterogeneous IoT network deployment is proposed in pursuit of a digital CSC information infrastructure.
The rapidly-growing use of electric vehicles (EVs) worldwide will generate a huge quantity of end-of-life (EoL) products in the coming decades and, in consequence, there will be an accumulation of ...Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) to be disposed of. Therefore, actions to favour the recovery of certain components from EVs, such as the electric vehicle battery (EVB), generates an opportunity for research. This paper presents a model for designing the disassembly process of the EVB pack for remanufacturing, obtaining the highest economic profitability from the process with the minimum environmental impact. Based on the disassembly sequence planning (DSP), the model provides the optimal disassembly level and the most suitable decision for the use of the disassembled components: reuse, remanufacturing, recycling or disposal. The lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery from the Audi A3 Sportback e-tron Hybrid is selected as the case study. Different case study scenarios based on the state of health (SOH) of the batteries are proposed. The results demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the model, providing significant insights into the recovery processes of WEEE, particularly Li-ion EVB packs.
In this paper, we develop algorithms to independently draw from a family of conjugate posterior distributions over the structural parameterization when sign and zero restrictions are used to identify ...structural vector autoregressions (SVARs). We call this family of conjugate posteriors normal-generalized-normal. Our algorithms draw from a conjugate uniform-normal-inverse-Wishart posterior over the orthogonal reduced-form parameterization and transform the draws into the structural parameterization; this transformation induces a normal-generalized-normal posterior over the structural parameterization. The uniform-normal-inverse-Wishart posterior over the orthogonal reduced-form parameterization has been prominent after the work of Uhlig (2005). We use Beaudry, Nam, and Wang's (2011) work on the relevance of optimism shocks to show the dangers of using alternative approaches to implementing sign and zero restrictions to identify SVARs like the penalty function approach. In particular, we analytically show that the penalty function approach adds restrictions to the ones described in the identification scheme.
The COVID-19 pandemic began in early 2020 with major health consequences. While a need to disseminate information to the medical community and general public was paramount, concerns have been raised ...regarding the scientific rigor in published reports. We performed a systematic review to evaluate the methodological quality of currently available COVID-19 studies compared to historical controls. A total of 9895 titles and abstracts were screened and 686 COVID-19 articles were included in the final analysis. Comparative analysis of COVID-19 to historical articles reveals a shorter time to acceptance (13.0IQR, 5.0-25.0 days vs. 110.0IQR, 71.0-156.0 days in COVID-19 and control articles, respectively; p < 0.0001). Furthermore, methodological quality scores are lower in COVID-19 articles across all study designs. COVID-19 clinical studies have a shorter time to publication and have lower methodological quality scores than control studies in the same journal. These studies should be revisited with the emergence of stronger evidence.
Narrative Sign Restrictions for SVARs Antolín-Díaz, Juan; Rubio-Ramírez, Juan F.
The American economic review,
10/2018, Letnik:
108, Številka:
10
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
We identify structural vector autoregressions using narrative sign restrictions. Narrative sign restrictions constrain the structural shocks and/or the historical decomposition around key historical ...events, ensuring that they agree with the established narrative account of these episodes. Using models of the oil market and monetary policy, we show that narrative sign restrictions tend to be highly informative. Even a single narrative sign restriction may dramatically sharpen and even change the inference of SVARs originally identified via traditional sign restrictions. Our approach combines the appeal of narrative methods with the popularized usage of traditional sign restrictions.
In the last fifteen years, Europe has been involved in the major development of photovoltaic (PV) solar energy. The Kyoto Protocol requirements and the European Union (EU) directives to promote the ...use of renewable energy sources (RES) together with environmental policies introduced for the development and use of alternative energies have generated a large number of market opportunities for this sector. Differences in the application of energy policies have caused significant imbalances in electricity systems and distortion of electricity prices. The main concern of governments is to define the support schemes to be used and how to combine them in the most profitable manner. The aim of this paper is to provide a comparative cost-effectiveness assessment using feed-in tariffs (FiT) and net-metering (NM) schemes in some representative EU countries. The authors have developed an economic model to evaluate the profitability of PV projects combining these support schemes. Results show not only the circumstances under which solar energy is economically profitable, but also the kind of PV systems, locations, minimum levels of tariff prices and specific combination of support schemes that should be promoted.
•Comparative cost-effectiveness assessment combining FiT and NM support schemes.•A minimum FiT is proposed in addition to traditional financial performance indicators.•Results show the specific combinations of support schemes that should be promoted.•This work can aid efficient energy policy making.•Model could be applied to other types of RES projects and other geographical areas.
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC)-the most common form of liver cancer-is an aggressive malignancy with few effective treatment options
. Lenvatinib is a small-molecule inhibitor of multiple receptor ...tyrosine kinases that is used for the treatment of patients with advanced HCC, but this drug has only limited clinical benefit
. Here, using a kinome-centred CRISPR-Cas9 genetic screen, we show that inhibition of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) is synthetic lethal with lenvatinib in liver cancer. The combination of the EGFR inhibitor gefitinib and lenvatinib displays potent anti-proliferative effects in vitro in liver cancer cell lines that express EGFR and in vivo in xenografted liver cancer cell lines, immunocompetent mouse models and patient-derived HCC tumours in mice. Mechanistically, inhibition of fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR) by lenvatinib treatment leads to feedback activation of the EGFR-PAK2-ERK5 signalling axis, which is blocked by EGFR inhibition. Treatment of 12 patients with advanced HCC who were unresponsive to lenvatinib treatment with the combination of lenvatinib plus gefitinib (trial identifier NCT04642547) resulted in meaningful clinical responses. The combination therapy identified here may represent a promising strategy for the approximately 50% of patients with advanced HCC who have high levels of EGFR.
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•End-to-end IoT communication infrastructure for Reverse Supply Chain Management.•RFID, BLE and MQTT standards cooperation for inventory-management.•LoRaWAN-based context information ...network for facility-monitoring.•Deployment of a heterogeneous IoT network solution for WEEE management.•A case study based on the recovery of computer components was deployed and tested.
The recent increase in the number of products returned from customers to retailers, supported by the adoption of environment-friendly policies, has led to a growing need to manage backward materials and information flows in the supply chain (SC) domain. Although numerous authors are contributing towards circular economy (CE) with end-of-life (EoL) approaches minimizing the negative impact of Waste Electric and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), the information infrastructure behind SC calls for novel approaches based on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). In fact, this is one of the major challenges for the so-called Industry 4.0, where wireless technologies governed by the Internet of Things (IoT) are expected to transform the industry as currently conceived. The present work proposes an end-to-end solution for Reverse Supply Chain Management (R-SCM) based on cooperation between different IoT communication standards, enabling cloud-based inventory monitoring of WEEE through embedded sensors. A case study was deployed using IoT devices and sensors, carrying out a set of experimental tests focused on wireless communications to evaluate its performance. The network configuration adopted overcomes the near real-time challenge and provides sufficient coverage to interconnect industrial areas such as warehouses or shop floors. The results point to different communication bottlenecks that need to be addressed in order to enhance the reliability of large-scale Industrial IoT (IIoT) networks.
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