•We investigate Blockchain adoption cases in financial services.•We summarize current status of Blockchain practices.•We use interviews to investigate Blockchain adoption.•We identify ...knowledge-hiding as a main barrier for financial industry.•We make several recommendations and four propositions.
FinTech (Financial Technology) and Blockchain are prevalent topics among technology leaders in finance today. This article describes the impact and revolution of FinTech and Blockchain in the financial industry and demonstrates the main characteristics of such technology. Then, we present three critical challenges as well as three ethical issues about using Blockchain technology. Next, we discuss the development of Blockchain for the financial sector. In addition, we describe the real motivations for banks to explore Blockchain, and problems they face. In order to have a good understanding of the industry, a qualitative method was adopted, and sixteen experts were interviewed. It was identified that knowledge hiding in Blockchain was common and the rationale behind was analyzed using the TPB (Theory of Planned Behavior) approach. The analysis results suggested that knowledge hiding was due to affective, behavioral and cognitive evaluations. The interviewees also provided several recommendations and success factors to overcome current issues in Blockchain adoption. Therefore, four important propositions have been developed. Finally, this article suggests how financial services should respond to this new technology and how to manage knowledge sharing in a more structured way. This article contributes to the literature related to the current entrepreneurial finance landscape for Blockchain.
Although the rechargeable lithium-sulfur battery is an advanced energy storage system, its practical implementation has been impeded by many issues, in particular the shuttle effect causing rapid ...capacity fade and low Coulombic efficiency. Herein, we report a conductive porous vanadium nitride nanoribbon/graphene composite accommodating the catholyte as the cathode of a lithium-sulfur battery. The vanadium nitride/graphene composite provides strong anchoring for polysulfides and fast polysulfide conversion. The anchoring effect of vanadium nitride is confirmed by experimental and theoretical results. Owing to the high conductivity of vanadium nitride, the composite cathode exhibits lower polarization and faster redox reaction kinetics than a reduced graphene oxide cathode, showing good rate and cycling performances. The initial capacity reaches 1,471 mAh g
and the capacity after 100 cycles is 1,252 mAh g
at 0.2 C, a loss of only 15%, offering a potential for use in high energy lithium-sulfur batteries.
The issue of water scarcity has drawn attention from all over the world. The coordination of the interaction between ecological and environmental development of water sources and socio-economic ...development is currently an essential issue that needs to be solved in order to safeguard the water resources environment for human survival. In this essay, we suggest a paradigm for assessing the sustainable exploitation of water resources. First, three ecological, economic, and social factors are investigated. Twenty essential evaluation indexes are then constructed using the Delphi approach, along with an index system for assessing the potential of water sources for sustainable development. The weights of each evaluation index were then determined using the combination assignment approach, which was then suggested. The coupled degree evaluation model of the capability for sustainable development of water sources was then developed. In order to confirm the viability and validity of the suggested model, the model was used to assess the Liwu River water source's capacity for sustainable growth in the context of the South-North Water Transfer in Shandong, China. It is believed that the aforementioned study would serve as a helpful resource when evaluating the capacity of water sources for sustainable development.
Aim
To evaluate the influence of diabetes on the severity and fatality of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus‐2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) infection.
Materials and Methods
The medical records of 66 ...hospitalized coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) patients were collected and classified into non‐severe (mild/moderate cases) and severe (severe/critical cases) groups. Logistic regression analysis was used to estimate the risk of severe COVID‐19 (severe/critical infection). In addition, a meta‐analysis including published studies reported the impact of diabetes on the severity and fatality of COVID‐19. The current study was conducted using fixed effects models.
Results
There were 22 diabetes and 44 non‐diabetes cases among the 66 hospitalized COVID‐19 patients. Seven patients with diabetes (31.82%) were diagnosed as severe COVID‐19 cases, which was significantly higher than that in the non‐diabetes group (4/44, 9.09%, P = .033). After adjustment for age and gender, diabetes was significantly associated with COVID‐19 severity (OR: 5.29, 95% CI: 1.07–26.02). A meta‐analysis further confirmed the positive association between diabetes and COVID‐19 severity (pooled OR = 2.58, 95% CI: 1.93–3.45). Moreover, the patients with diabetes infected with SARS‐CoV‐2 had a 2.95‐fold higher risk of fatality compared with those patients without diabetes (95% CI: 1.93–4.53).
Conclusions
Our findings provide new evidence that diabetes is associated with a higher risk of severity and fatality of COVID‐19. Therefore, intensive monitoring and antidiabetic therapy should be considered in patients with diabetes with SARS‐CoV‐2 infection.
Understanding the densification behaviours and formation mechanisms of defects are essential to fabricate high quality and high strength aluminium components using selective laser melting (SLM) ...technology. In this work, the effects of laser power and scanning speed on the densification, defects evolution and their formation mechanisms in a SLMed 2024 aluminium (Al) alloy were investigated in consideration of the corresponding laser energy input, melting mode transition and microstructural evolution. The results showed that optimizing the processing parameters effectively reduced the porosity level below 1% by avoiding the lack of fusion and keyhole melting mode, and minimizing the gas pores. However, optimization of the processing parameters could not eliminate the columnar structure associated with the SLMed 2024 Al alloy, which contributed to the hot-tearing cracks in the SLMed parts. It was found that the dependence of porosity formation on SLM processing parameters was contrary to the crack density. Hence, to further improve the SLM-processability of the 2024 Al alloy it is necessary to develop SLM methods in order avoid the hot-cracking within the optimized processing parameter window associated with the minimum porosity formation.
The construction of NIMBY (Not in my backyard) facilities has caused many conflicts but is struggling to reduce it in China. With the background of public participation in social governance in the ...future, effective public participation is extremely helpful to solve this issue. Promoting public participation and scientifically evaluating the implementation effect of public participation are urgent problems to be solved at present. This study aims to analysis the factors hindering public participation and improve the implementation effect. Therefore, an evaluation system with 16 factors is established based on literature review and questionnaire survey, namely the basis of participation, participation process, external support, and cost-effectiveness. Interactions among the 16 factors are further evaluated by expert opinions. The objective and subjective weights of indicators are determined and combined by introducing Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) and entropy weight method (EWM). Considering the uncertainty and randomness of subjective judgment, cloud model is introduced to evaluate the implementation effect of public participation. Finally, this framework is applied to evaluate the project of Jiu Feng waste-to-energy (WTE) plant in Hangzhou, China, which verifies the applicability of the evaluation framework for the implementation effect of public participation in NIMBY facilities. The results indicate that the implementation of public participation is between "average" and "good", with significant room for improvement in the involvement of NGOs and the influence of public opinion on decision-making. Additionally, the participation process has a significant impact on the whole system. The framework can provide government departments with guidance in implementing public participation.
Construction of not in my back yard (NIMBY) facility Public Private Partnership (PPP) projects are feasible measures to realize sustainable urbanization. In order to ensure the smooth development of ...the NIMBY facility PPP projects, the problem of choosing the most suitable operation mode among many PPP modes is still scarce and unscientific. In order to select the operation mode of the PPP projects that best fits the characteristics of the project, this paper constructs the operation mode selection of the NIMBY facility PPP project. Firstly, the index system of operation mode selection of the NIMBY facility PPP project is determined. G1 subjective weighting method and information entropy objective weighting method are introduced to solve the optimal weight of each index. Grey correlation theory is used to improve TOPSIS method, and the calculation form of relative proximity degree is optimized to determine the most suitable operation mode for the project. In this paper, combined weighting and TOPSIS method are applied to the research of NIMBY facility PPP project, and the operation mode selection of NIMBY facility PPP project is established, which makes up the blank of this part. Finally, a PPP project in Qingdao, Shandong Province, China, is taken as an example to verify the applicability of the model. The effectiveness of this model was tested by comparing the results of TOPSIS method, Grey target model, Extended matter-element mode and GRA-TOPSIS. It is hoped to provide useful reference for the operation mode selection of NIMBY facility PPP project.
The objective of the study described here is to evaluate the effect of temperature, strain rate, and strain on the microstructure of dynamically recrystallized nickel–chromium alloy (800H) subjected ...to hot compression over a wide range of strain rates. The microstructural evolution was studied by electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD) and the effect of adiabatic heating on hot deformation was analyzed to correct the flow curves at high strains. The grain orientation spread (GOS) approach was used to distinguish the dynamic recrystallization (DRX) grains from the deformed matrix. The nucleation mechanism of DRX and the role of Σ3n CSL boundaries during DRX were explored. Additionally, the influence of carbides on the DRX behavior was studied within the temperature of 850–950°C. The results indicated that the DRX can be stimulated by adiabatic heating and strong dislocation–dislocation interaction occurring with increase in the strain rate in the range of 1–30s−1. The threshold value of GOS (1.2°) separated the DRX grains from the deformed matrix. The recrystallized grains nucleated at pre-existing grain boundaries by extensive bulging associated with grain fragmentation. The Σ3n CSL boundaries play an important role in DRX and they can be generated through interaction among them after the initiation of DRX. The precipitation of Cr23C6 and Ti(C, N) at the parent grain boundary could restrain or even inhibit the occurrence of DRX in the temperature range of 850–950°C.
•Attention mechanism with LSTM (ALSTM) has been applied to improve wheat yield estimation.•ALSTM model produced more accurate crop yield estimates compared with LSTM model.•Attention mechanism ...facilitatesd interpretability of the LSTM network’s inner working.•ALSTM model provided stable performance at different sampling sites and years.
The rapid and effective acquisition of crop yield information is critical to the stability of food markets and development and implementation of related policies. It is an important baseline observation that is used for ensuring regional and global food security. In this study, a novel deep learning framework was developed for winter wheat yield estimation using meteorological data and two remotely sensed indices, Vegetation Temperature Condition Index (VTCI) and Leaf Area Index (LAI) at the main growth stages of winter wheat in the Guanzhong Plain. The proposed deep learning model was based on Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) neural network with an attention mechanism (ALSTM), which the main idea is to assign attention to the key parts of the input sequence that affect the target vectors so that the specific features can be accurately extracted. The ALSTM model provided an improved estimation accuracy (R2 = 0.63, MAPE = 8.20%, RMSE = 502.71 kg/ha, NRMSE = 11.15%) as compared with the LSTM (R2 = 0.55, MAPE = 13.46%, RMSE = 699.92 kg/ha, NRMSE = 15.52%). A validation based on leave-one-year-out-validation further substantiated the robustness of ALSTM with smaller values of NRMSE and MAPE (13.63% and 11.54%). We demonstrated that the ALSTM model provided good generalization ability for sampling sites under different farming systems, including irrigation and rain-fed sampling sites. In addition, we evaluated the relative importance of each input variable in determining yields based on stepwise sensitivity analysis. It was found that LAI at the heading-filling stage and the milk stage as well as VTCI at the jointing stage contributed more than other input feature variables towards the corresponding yield. In conclusion, our findings highlighted that the attention mechanism helped to improve the interpretability of neural networks and the ALSTM model along with remotely sensed biophysical indices can provide a reliable and robust estimation of crop yield. An accurate estimation of wheat yield is not only helping towards informed crop management decisions but it will improve efficiency and sustainability of farming operations.
Abstract
Additive manufacturing (AM) creates digitally designed parts by successive addition of material. However, owing to intrinsic thermal cycling, metallic parts produced by AM almost inevitably ...suffer from spatially dependent heterogeneities in phases and mechanical properties, which may cause unpredictable service failures. Here, we demonstrate a synergistic alloy design approach to overcome this issue in titanium alloys manufactured by laser powder bed fusion. The key to our approach is in-situ alloying of Ti−6Al−4V (in weight per cent) with combined additions of pure titanium powders and iron oxide (Fe
2
O
3
) nanoparticles. This not only enables in-situ elimination of phase heterogeneity through diluting V concentration whilst introducing small amounts of Fe, but also compensates for the strength loss via oxygen solute strengthening. Our alloys achieve spatially uniform microstructures and mechanical properties which are superior to those of Ti−6Al−4V. This study may help to guide the design of other alloys, which not only overcomes the challenge inherent to the AM processes, but also takes advantage of the alloy design opportunities offered by AM.
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