Data envelopment analysis (DEA) has recently become a popular method in measuring energy efficiency at the macro-economy level. However, previous studies are limited in that they failed to consider ...the issues of undesirable outputs and minimisation of energy consumption. Thus, this study considers both factors in measuring Chinese industrial energy efficiency and investigates the maximum energy-saving potential in 28 administrative regions in China. The results show that industries in the east area have the best average energy efficiency for the period 2000–2006, followed by the central area. Further, after comparing the industrial energy overall efficiency, pure technical efficiency (IEPTE), and scale efficiency of the 28 administrative regions examined, the study finds that in most regions of this study, the two main reasons causing the wastage of a large amount of energy during the industrial production process are that the industrial structure of most regions still relies on the massive use of energy in order to support the industrial-based economy and the IEPTE is too low. Based on these findings, this paper correspondingly proposes some policies to improve regional industrial energy efficiency.
This paper investigates the observation problem for a class of MIMO non uniformly observable systems in the presence of sampled and delayed outputs. A high gain observer is first designed for the ...delay-free and continuous output measurement case. The observer gain involves the resolution of an appropriate Lyapunov differential equation allowing to show that the underlying observation error converges exponentially to zero under a well defined persistent excitation condition. This observer is then redesigned to cope with the output sampling process as well as the output delay thanks to an appropriate cascade structure composed of a set of dynamical subsystems. The first subsystem in the cascade is an impulsive continuous–discrete time observer which provides the estimation of the delayed state and each remaining subsystem in the cascade is a predictor which estimates the state over a small horizon equal to a fraction of the time delay in such a way that the state of the last predictor is an estimate of the system actual state. The exponential convergence to zero of the observation error related to the cascade observer is established for arbitrarily long delays provided that the maximum value of the sampling partition diameter is lower than a certain given bound. Simulations results are given to highlight the performance and the main properties of the proposed cascade observer.
This research is based on the study (the knowledge of the environment and its representation in the results of the students of the technical education department) and the research includes four ...chapters, the first chapter (the problem of the research, its importance, its purpose, its limits, and the terms contained in the title of the research), the second chapter included the theoretical framework and the previous studies, which included the theoretical framework of the discussion about reading awareness and ended with a set of indicators, while the third chapter included the research procedures, which included the research complex, which amounted to (50) of the results of the students of the technical education section of the subject manual work, (3) actions were selected in a deliberate manner, then the research tool, and statistical methods and sample analysis, while the fourth chapter included research results, conclusions, and proposals, and the researcher reached a sentence of conclusions; borrowing neglected materials from the environment to produce artistic works that are characterized by beauty is an indication of the students' possession of a level of awareness towards their environment.
Improving water-use efficiency (WUE) is a crucial way of achieving green industrial production and sustainable development. Applying an improved Super-slacks-based measure model with undesirable ...outputs, this paper investigates industrial WUE in mainland China. The results show that: (1) Industrial WUE in China is improving with the efficiency value increasing from 0.9874 to 0.9962 in 2012–2015. (2) The regions of water absolute scarcity and the vulnerability show the highest industry-related WUE, whereas the water stressed region, water scarce region, and water abundant region failed to achieve efficiency during the observation period. (3) The overall index value using the conventional model was higher than that of the improved model, indicating the need for a more reasonable water-use structure and environmentally friendly discharge structure. This study provides a new perspective for measuring industrial WUE and advances related studies by (1) incorporating the actual structure of water used and wastewater discharged with weights assigned to input and output slacks according to marginal use cost of water and marginal treatment cost of wastewater; and (2) adding realistic constraints on the amount of water used and wastewater discharged to the model. The estimated provinces in mainland China can adjust their industrial water-use structures and wastewater-discharge structures based on the results of this study, and thus improve the industrial WUE.
•An improved Slacks-based measure is applied for assessing water-use efficiency.•Importance of input and output indicators are distinguished based on reality.•Feasible region of the model is reconstructed with additional constraints added.•Super-SBM model is applied for full ranking of decision making units.
The current study investigates the efficiency of banks in Saudi Arabia in terms of technical change and change in total productivity. The study considers ten banks listed on Tadawul as a sample from ...2016 to 2021. The Malmquist Data Envelopment Analysis (Malmquist DEA) model is employed to measure banks’ efficiency. Customer deposits and balances with other banks and financial institutions are inputs, while the operating profit and net income are outputs to measure efficiency. The results of efficiency report that most of the Saudi Arabian banks are considerably efficient, while some are marginally efficient. The technical change report results show that Saudi Arabia’s banks are enthusiastic about adopting new technologies that lead to their growth. Further, the results of the change in total productivity show great dynamism among the Saudi Arabian banks to become more productive, which ultimately leads to a more remarkable performance. The study results demonstrate the good performance of Saudi Arabian banks; however, very few banks are marginally efficient in terms of efficiency change. Therefore, the study supports the established hypothesis that there is a significant change in the technical efficiency and total productivity of Saudi Arabian banks. AcknowledgmentThe author(s) acknowledge that the Deanship of Scientific Research supports the current project at Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University under research project number 2022/02/20810.
For area reasons, NMOS transistors are preferred over PMOS for the pull-up path in gate drivers. Bootstrapping has to ensure sufficient NMOS gate overdrive. Especially in high-current gate drivers ...with large transistors, the bootstrap capacitor is too large for integration. This paper proposes three options of fully integrated bootstrap circuits. The key idea is that the main bootstrap capacitor is supported by a second bootstrap capacitor, which is charged to a higher voltage and ensures high charge allocation when the driver turns on. A capacitor sizing guideline and the overall driver implementation including a suitable charge pump for permanent driver activation is provided. A linear regulator is used for bootstrap supply and it also compensates the voltage drop of the bootstrap diode. Measurements from a testchip in 180 nm high-voltage BiCMOS confirm the benefit of high-voltage charge storing. The fully integrated bootstrap circuit with two stacked 75.8 pF and 18.9 pF capacitors results in an expected voltage dip of lower than 1 V. Both bootstrap capacitors require 70% less area compared to a conventional bootstrap circuit. Besides drivers, the proposed bootstrap can also be directly applied to power stages to achieve fully integrated switched mode power supplies or class-D output stages.
Research on the effect of changing staffing levels (i.e. resizing) on organisational innovation has generated mixed and often contradictory results. Recent research has attempted to reconcile such ...inconsistencies by showing that this effect on innovation depends on the firm’s staffing level prior to downsizing. Since firms seek to downsize as well as upsize their staffing levels, the effect of resizing (downsizing and upsizing) on innovation and the magnitude of such effect is still unknown. Using a longitudinal dataset of UK firms, we examine the effect of resizing on innovation outputs and its magnitude in resource-rich and resource-constrained firms. Our results suggest that upsizing in resource-constrained firms and downsizing in resource-rich firms is helpful for innovation, whereas upsizing in resource-rich and downsizing in resource-constrained firms have the reverse effect. Compared with resource-rich firms, the effect of resizing on innovation outputs is more pronounced in resource-constrained firms. These results have several practical managerial implications.
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•We examine the effect of resizing on innovation outputs and its magnitude in resource-rich and resource-constrained firms.•Our data consists of a panel of hand-collected firm data from 122 UK medium and large firms between 1995 and 2016.•Upsizing in resource-constrained firms and downsizing in resource-rich firms is helpful for innovation.•The effect of resizing on innovation outputs is more pronounced in resource-constrained compared with resource-rich firms.•Managers and senior executives can now take upsizing and downsizing with confidence using a 2×2 matrix.
Unexpectedness in medical research Aslan, Yasemin; Yaqub, Ohid; Sampat, Bhaven N. ...
Research policy,
October 2024, 2024-10-00, Letnik:
53, Številka:
8
Journal Article
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Whether research funding is targetable is one of the central unresolved questions of science policy. A particular question is how often research aimed at understanding one disease or problem spills ...over to others. This has been a perennial topic of debate at the world's largest single funding body of biomedical research, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). Critics of the agency's priority-setting process have repeatedly called for better alignment between funding and disease burden, and patient advocates for specific diseases for more funding for their causes. In response, opponents of planning have argued that research in one area frequently leads to advances in others. In this study, we provide new evidence to inform these debates by examining the extent to which research funding (grants) in one scientific or disease area leads to research findings (publications) in another. We used the NIH's Research, Condition, and Disease Categorization (RCDC) to identify categories for NIH grants awarded between 2008 and 2016. We applied machine-learning to map text to these categories and use this model to categorize publications resulting from these grants. We categorized over 1.2 million publications, resulting from over 90,000 grants. We found that 70 % of the publications have at least one RCDC category not in its grant, which we termed ‘unexpected’ categories. On average, 40 % of categories assigned to a publication were unexpected. After adjusting for similarity across some of the RCDC categories by empirically clustering the categories, we found 58 % of the publications had at least one unexpected category and, on average, 33 % of publication categories were unexpected. Our results suggest that disease-orientation and clinical research were less likely to be associated with spillovers. Grants resulting from targeted requests for applications were more likely to result in publications with unexpected categories, though the magnitude of the differences was relatively small.
•Examines how often research aimed at one disease or problem spills over to others.•We used the NIH's RCDC to identify categories in over 90,000 grants.•We applied machine learning to categorize over 1.2 million publications.•We found 70 % of publications have at least one unexpected category.•On average, 40 % of categories assigned to a publication were unexpected.
Nonlinear optical (NLO) crystals that can expand the spectral range of laser outputs have attracted significant attention for their optoelectronic applications. The research progress from the ...discovery of new single crystal structures to the realization of final device applications involves many key steps and is very time consuming and challenging. Consequently, exploring efficient design strategies to shorten the research period and accelerate the rational design of novel NLO materials has become imperative to address the pressing demand for advanced materials. The recent shift in paradigm toward exploring new NLO crystals involves significant progress from extensive "trial and error methodologies to strategic approaches. This review proposes the concept of rational structure design for nonlinear optical crystals leveraging advantageous templates. It further discusses their optical characteristics, promising applications as second-order NLO materials, and the relationship between their structure and performance, and highlights urgent issues that need to be addressed in the field of NLO crystals in the future. The review aims to provide ideas and driving impetus to encourage researchers to achieve new breakthroughs in the next generation of NLO materials.
An efficient strategy for designing nonlinear optical (NLO) crystals leveraging advantageous templates is proposed, and the recent advancements and prospects have been analyzed, providing valuable insights for the development of NLO materials.
Background and aim: Librarians, as practitioners of Library and Information Science (LIS), by playing various roles, can contribute to the promotion of research and expansion of human knowledge. The ...aim of the present study was to investigate librarians' scientific publications indexed in the Scopus database between 2016 and 2020 using the scientometric approach. Materials and methods: The present study, which was conducted using a scientometric approach, is descriptive in terms of data collection and applied in terms of the objective. The research population was all articles indexed in the Scopus database in 2016-2020 in which the word "librarian" is included in at least one of the authors’ organizational affiliations. The number of these articles amounted to 2207 after review and screening by the researchers. Findings: In general, librarians accounted for 1.5% of the worldwide scientific production in the field of LIS. Librarians were the first, second or third author in more than 60% of the articles analyzed. Totally, 61% of the articles by librarians were published in non-LIS disciplines such as biological sciences, medicine, and computer science, and the chi-square test showed that the participation of librarians was significantly higher in non-LIS disciplines than in LIS disciplines (p<0.001). A closer examination of the articles indexed by librarians in the Scopus database in the LIS subject area showed that scientometrics, library services, databases, archives, and knowledge management were the most interesting topics for librarians with a frequency of 134, 131, 84, 75 and 59 articles, respectively. Conclusion: Librarians as research assistants have made an important contribution to the writing of articles from non-LIS fields in recent years. Moreover, scientometrics has been one of the main topics of their research in the LIS field.
