Years Of Data Research Articles

The impact of renewable and non-renewable energy consumption on aggregate output in Pakistan: robust evidence from the RALS cointegration test.

Over the past three decades, Pakistan's energy consumption has surged due to industrialization, population growth, and development activities. To meet the escalating energy demands, the country has primarily relied on thermal power projects, which are financially burdensome and environmentally detrimental, compared to hydropower projects. This reliance exposes Pakistan to global oil price shocks and environmental degradation. To address this dilemma, this empirical research investigates the impact of both non-energy factors (labour and capital) and energy-specific factors (renewable and non-renewable) on Pakistan's aggregate output, using annual time-series data from 1980 to 2021. The analysis employs the newly established Residual Augmented Least Square (RALS) cointegration test and the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) methodology to estimate the long-term cointegrating relationship among the examined variables. The empirical findings demonstrate that both non-energy and energy-specific factors positively and significantly influence Pakistan's long-term aggregate output. However, petroleum consumption exerts a positive but insignificant influence on Pakistan's long-term aggregate output. The study recommends diversifying the energy supply mix to include more hydroelectricity, non-hydroelectric renewables (mainly solar and wind), and natural gas. Specifically, transitioning from imported, expensive, and more greenhouse gas (GHG)-generating petroleum products to domestically produced natural gas could potentially reduce Pakistan's trade deficit and its vulnerability to global oil price shocks. Besides the economic benefits, shifting from non-renewable energy sources (specifically oil) to renewable energy would enhance Pakistan's image and increase its geopolitical influence over neighboring countries. Additionally, the study emphasizes the need to encourage private sector participation in renewable energy projects and suggests implementing effective carbon tax policies to mitigate CO2 emissions and foster economic growth.

Probabilistic Assessment of the Impact of Electric Vehicle Fast Charging Stations Integration into MV Distribution Networks Considering Annual and Seasonal Time-Series Data

Electric vehicle (EV) fast charging stations (FCSs) are essential for achieving net-zero carbon emissions. However, their high power demands pose technical hurdles for medium-voltage (MV) distribution networks, resulting in energy losses, equipment performance issues, overheating, and unexpected tripping. Integrating FCSs into the grid requires considering annual and seasonal variations in EV fast-charging energy consumption. Neglecting these variations can lead to either underestimating or overestimating the impacts of FCSs on the networks. This paper introduces a probabilistic method to assess voltage profile violations, overload capacity, and increased power losses due to FCSs. By incorporating annual and seasonal time-series data, the method accounts for uncertainties related to EV fast charging. Applied to an MV feeder in Brazil, our evaluations highlight the impact of annual power consumption seasonality on EV-grid integration studies. Considering seasonal dependency is crucial for precise impact assessments of MV distribution networks. The proposed method aids utility engineers and planners in quantifying and mitigating the effects of EV fast charging, contributing to more reliable MV grid integration strategies.

Empowering energy access: Exploring financial inclusion's impact on energy poverty in the fragile five economies

Energy poverty is a major issue that deepens economic challenges, especially in the five fragile states of Turkey, Brazil, South Africa, India, and Indonesia. The objective of this study is to examine the impact of financial inclusion on energy poverty, as removing financial barriers to energy access and utilisation is critical for sustainable development. The study hypothesizes that financial inclusion plays a decisive role in alleviating energy poverty. The study analyses the second generation panel methods such as AMG, Driscool-Kraay, and FMOLS using annual data from 2000 to 2021 and examines the causal relationships between variables using Dumitrescu-Hurlin panel causality test. The findings reveal that financial inclusion, low carbon technology trade, energy efficiency, economic growth, and human capital play a central role in alleviating energy poverty in these economies. On the other hand, a unidirectional causal relationship was found between financial inclusion and low carbon technology trade, human capital, energy efficiency, and energy poverty. In contrast, a bidirectional causal relationship was observed between economic growth and energy poverty. These findings provide important insights for policymakers and stakeholders; understanding the complex dynamics between financial inclusion and energy poverty can help design targeted strategies to increase energy access and promote inclusive economic development in fragile economies.

Relationship between Public Expenditure and Inflation

Effective management of inflation remains one of the arduous tasks for managers of global economies. Inflation remains a macroeconomic indicator whose management outcomes have the potential to decide the electoral fortunes of elected governments and determine the purchasing power of household incomes. The purpose of this research was to assess how a steady increase in public expenditure could impact inflationary levels. The quantitative approach to scientific inquiry was adapted and used in the research. Specifically, the cross-sectional design formed the basis of the research. Data required for the research were obtained mainly from secondary sources. These included textbooks, peer-reviewed articles published in journals and grey literature. Other sources were Google Search Engine, including Netcials, MacroTrends, and databases of the World Bank and Bank of Ghana, among other significant sources. Respective data on Ghana’s annual GDP values from 1960 through 2020, annual inflation data from 1965 through 2020, changes in annual inflation rates from 1965 through 2020, and annual public expenditure values from 1983 through 2020 were collected and used in the research. Descriptive statistics and regression models were used to describe the research variables and to evaluate their behaviour over the stated time frame on inflation. The study revealed lax monetary policy as the root cause of consistently high inflationary rates over considerable periods and remained a strong contributor to the weak purchasing power of national fiat currencies. Further, relative price distortions away from their economic equilibrium are not healthy for the economy, while disinflationary policies adapted for implementation should be contingent on the causes of inflation. The single largest cost of inflation to consumers is the erosion of income, whereas higher tax rates are not the panacea for the challenges of mounting public expenditure and public debts. Respective inflation rates recorded in Ghana during 2012 (7.13%) and 1995 (59.46%) remained the lowest and highest from 1993 through 2020. Fiscal periods 2017 through 2020, 2009 through 2012, and 2005 through 2008 recorded the respective best (9.33%), second-best (11.46%) and third-best (13.32%) annual average inflation rates. With the exception of 2013 through 2016, the performance of the Ghanaian economy in relation to annual average inflationary control witnessed improvements during the second political and administrative terms compared to the first terms. However, the best annual average inflation rate over an eight-year period during the Fourth Republic was recorded from 2009 through 2016 (13.45%). Findings from the research revealed a positive and significant relationship between public expenditure and inflation (coefficient value = 1.2004653; p = 0.004, p < 0.05). Public expenditure accounted for 21.30% of the variation in inflation rate from 1983 through 2020. Results from the statistical output validated the significant influence of public expenditure on inflationary hikes, the need for monetary and fiscal policies related to inflation control to be strategically reviewed and strengthened to improve implementation outcomes, and the potential of rising public expenditure to undermine the rigidity and robustness of economic fundamentals through an unexpected surge in inflationary levels. The findings underscored the need for managers of various global economies to be keen on “economic” public expenditure to the neglect of profligate public expenditure, so the socio-economic derivatives from investments in public infrastructure would strongly add to, rather than subtract from, national development and growth efforts. The fundamental objective of MPC should be pivoted around three cardinal functions: the creation of maximum employment, moderation of long-term interest rates and ensuring price stability. Excessive public expenditure requires careful consideration by economies that whet their national development appetite with increased public infrastructure projects.

Temporal Exploration of COPD Phenotypes: Insights from the COPDGene and SPIROMICS Cohorts.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exhibits considerable progression heterogeneity. We hypothesized that elastic principal graph analysis (EPGA) would identify distinct clinical phenotypes and their longitudinal relationships. Cross-sectional data from 8,972 tobacco-exposed COPDGene participants, with and without COPD, were used to train a model with EPGA, using thirty clinical, physiologic and CT features. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to reduce data dimensionality to six principal components. An elastic principal tree was fitted to the reduced space. 4,585 participants from COPDGene Phase 2 were used to test longitudinal trajectories. 2,652 participants from SPIROMICS tested external reproducibility. Our analysis used cross-sectional data to create an elastic principal tree, where the concept of time is represented by distance on the tree. Six clinically distinct tree segments were identified that differed by lung function, symptoms, and CT features: 1) Subclinical (SC); 2) Parenchymal Abnormality (PA); 3) Chronic Bronchitis (CB); 4) Emphysema Male (EM); 5) Emphysema Female (EF); and 6) Severe Airways (SA) disease. Cross-sectional SPIROMICS data confirmed similar groupings. 5-year data from COPDGene mapped longitudinal changes onto the tree. 29% of patients changed segment during follow-up; longitudinal trajectories confirmed a net flow of patients along the tree, from SC towards Emphysema, although alternative trajectories were noted, through airway disease predominant phenotypes, CB and SA. This novel analytic methodology provides an approach to defining longitudinal phenotypic trajectories using cross sectional data. These insights are clinically relevant and could facilitate precision therapy and future trials to modify disease progression.

Industrial Sector Performance and Labour Force Participation in Nigeria: A Gender Perspective

The literature on the role of industrialization in labour force participation in Nigeria is quite scanty. Besides, there is significant disparity between male and female labour force participation rates in the country. To this end, this study investigated the impact of industrial sector performance on labour force participation in Nigeria. The total industrial sector output was disaggregated into the outputs of the various components of the Nigerian industrial sector namely; manufacturing, mining and quarrying, utility and construction sectors. Total labour force participation rate was equally disaggregated into male and female labour force participation rates. Annual time-series data for the period 1981 to 2022 were used for the study. The Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) unit root test, Johansen cointegration test, error correction model (ECM), and Granger causality test were the econometric techniques used in analysing the data. The findings from the study revealed that manufacturing sector, and mining and quarrying sector outputs have significant positive impact on male labour force participation rate; construction sector output has insignificant positive impact on male labour force participation rate while utility sector output has insignificant negative impact on male labour force participation rate. On the other hand, manufacturing sector, and mining and quarrying sector outputs have significant negative impact on female labour participation rate while utility and construction sectors’ outputs have insignificant positive impact on female labour force participation rate. The main conclusion from the study is that while the total industrial sector performance largely encourages male labour force participation, it largely discourages female labour force participation in Nigeria

Trend analysis on CO2 emissions and their implications: a comparative study between India and China.

This research paper aims to provide a comparative trend analysis of CO2 emissions from the two largest emitters, India and China. The analysis focuses on the main sources of CO2 emissions-coal, oil, cement, and gas and their annual data and global share percentages from 1960 to 2019. The study uses non-parametric trend analysis methods, which do not rely on assumptions of normality, outliers, or data length. Pettitt's test, a well-established non-parametric method, was used to detect sudden shifts in the data. The Mann-Kendall (MK) test and Sen's slope estimator were then applied to identify the presence or absence of monotonic linear trends and assess the magnitude of the slopes. In addition, the innovative trend analysis (ITA) method was used, which is particularly effective in detecting and visualizing monotonic, non-monotonic, and sub-trends. The ITA method has the advantage of presenting these trends in a graphical format. According to the results of Pettitt's test, an abrupt change was detected in India in 1989 for all sources of CO2 emissions. In China, however, an abrupt change was detected in 1989 for coal and gas-related sources, while other sources showed a change point in 1990. The results of the MK test and the ITA method showed that all sources show only monotonic increasing trends. Based on the results of Sen's slope estimator, the average rate of change of CO2 emissions is significantly higher in China than in India in all categories after the detection of the abrupt change point. Policymakers should promote the adoption of renewable energy sources, such as solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal, and also implement strategies to control deforestation to counteract the abnormal increase in CO2 emissions. Finally, this research lays a solid foundation for future studies on CO2 emissions.

The Effect of Government Policy on Infrastructure Priorities on the Profitability of Construction Companies in Indonesia 2011-2019

Introduction/Main Objective: The Indonesian government's policy of prioritizing the acceleration in infrastructure development will certainly have an impact on construction companies. Background of the Problem: This research aims to determine the influence of internal and external company factors on the profitability of companies in the building construction subsector. Novelty: This research analyzes the impact of increasing the government's infrastructure budget on the profitability of building construction subsector companies. Research Method: This research uses panel data regression analysis with annual financial report data from building construction subsector companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange for the period from 2011 to 2019, which is divided into the period before the infrastructure sector became the focus of development (2011 to 2014) and after (2015 to 2019). Profitability is measured using the return on assets. The external factors are measured using the infrastructure budget and inflation, while the internal factors are measured using company size, liquidity, leverage, cash turnover, working capital turnover and receivables turnover. Findings/Results: This research concludes that the infrastructure budget, company size, and liquidity do not have a significant positive effect on company profitability, while inflation does not have a significant negative effect on profitability. Furthermore, cash turnover, working capital turnover, and account receivable turnover have a significant positive effect on profitability, while leverage has a significant negative effect on profitability. Conclusion: This research shows that companies should periodically review the impact of loans and always maintain the composition of their funding, according to their needs. Meanwhile, the government needs to evaluate the auction process, and sharpen its alternative infrastructure project funding strategies.

Scalar induced gravity waves from ultra slow-roll galileon inflation

We consider the production of secondary gravity waves in Galileon inflation with an ultra-slow roll (USR) phase and show that the spectrum of scalar-induced gravitational waves (SIGWs) in this case is consistent with the recent NANOGrav 15-year data and with sensitivities of other ground and space-based missions, LISA, BBO, DECIGO, CE, ET, HLVK (consists of aLIGO, aVirgo, and KAGRA), and HLV(03). Thanks to the non-renormalization property of Galileon theory, the amplitude of the large fluctuation is controllable at the sharp transitions between SR and USR regions. We show that the behavior of the GW spectrum, when one-loop effects are included in the scalar power spectrum, is preserved under a shift of the sharp transition scale with peak amplitude ΩGWh2∼O(10−6), and hence it can cover a wide range of frequencies within O(10−9Hz−107Hz). An analysis of the allowed mass range for primordial black holes (PBHs) is also performed, where we find that mass values ranging from O(1M⊙−10−18M⊙) can be generated over the corresponding allowed range of low and high frequencies.

Do creditors punish weak banks? Evidence from Indian urban cooperative banks’ failure

This study empirically assesses two critical hypotheses related to market discipline: (i) Do depositors penalize underperforming banks by withdrawing their deposits? and (ii) Do well-informed peer banks reduce lending to weak banks? Based on the annual standalone balance sheet data of urban cooperative banks in India from 1990 to 2020, our findings suggest that: (i) the behaviour of savings and current depositors is not significantly affected by the bank risk; (ii) the risk-taking behaviour of the banks significantly influences term deposits; and (iii) other informed peer banks and financial institutions do respond to the riskiness of peer banks. Additionally, our research revealed a positive association between the size of assets and the deposit growth rate, indicating that depositors are responsive to the influence of the “too-big-to-fail” phenomenon. Moreover, depositors are sensitive to banks’ non-interest expenditures. Banks with higher non-interest expenditures pay a higher interest rate to retain depositors, thus suggesting the presence of weak market discipline.

Demographic and temporal trends in mental health and substance use services provided by primary care physicians in British Columbia, Canada

BackgroundAs the demand for mental health and substance use (MHSU) services increases, there will be an even greater need for health human resources to deliver this care. This study investigates how family physicians’ (FP) contact volume, and more specifically, MHSU contact volume, is shaped by demographic trends among FPs in British Columbia, Canada.MethodsWe used annual physician-level administrative billing data and demographic information on FPs in British Columbia between 1996 and 2017. This study analyzes trends in primary care service provision among graduating cohorts of FPs, FPs of different ages (as measured by years since graduation), and FPs practicing during different time periods. Additionally, analyses are stratified by FP sex to account for potential differences in labour supply patterns between male and female FPs.ResultsOur results show that while FPs’ overall contacts with patients decreased between 1996 and 2017, their annual number of MHSU contacts increased, which was largely driven by an increase in substance use visits. Demographically, the proportion of female FPs in the labour force rose over time. Observed trends were similar, though not identical in male and female FPs, as males tended to have higher overall contact volume (both total contacts and MHSU), but also steeper declines in contact volume in later careers. The number of contacts (both total and MHSU) changed across career stage - rising steadily from start to mid-career, peaking at 20–30 years in practice, and decreasing steadily thereafter. This was evident for all cohorts and consistent over the 21-year study period but flattened in amplitude over time. Our findings also point to potential cohort effects on labour supply. The inverse U-shaped career trend extended to MHSU contacts, but its peak seems to have shifted to a later career stage (peaking at 30–40 years of practice) over time.ConclusionsOur study shows changing dynamics in MHSU service delivery among FPs over time, across the life span and between FP sexes that are likely to influence access to care beyond simply the number of FPs. Given the healthcare needs of the population, these findings point to potential future changes in provision of MHSU services.

Use of in vivo confocal microscopy in suspected Acanthamoeba keratitis: a 12-year real-world data study at a Swedish regional referral center

PurposeTo report real-world data (RWD) on the use of in vivo confocal microscopy (IVCM) in handling cases of suspected Acanthamoeba keratitis (AK) cases at a regional referral center during a 12-year period.MethodsRetrospective study of patients with suspected AK presenting at a regional referral center for IVCM in Sweden from 2010 to 2022. Demographics, symptoms, outcomes, and clinical management were analyzed, and IVCM images were interpreted.ResultsOf 74 included patients with suspected AK, 18 (24%) were IVCM-positive, 33 (44%) were IVCM-negative, 15 had inconclusive IVCM results (20.2%), and 8 (11%) were referred for a second opinion based on IVCM, 4 of which were IVCM-positive (5.5%), yielding an overall IVCM-positive rate of 29.5%. Cultures were taken in 38 cases (51%) with only 2 cases (2.7%) culture-positive for AK. Of IVCM-negative cases, cultures were taken in 22 (67%) of cases and 100% of these were AK-negative. IVCM-positive cases had more clinic visits (median 30, P = 0.018) and longer follow-up time (median 890 days, P = 0.009) than IVCM-negative patients, while visual acuity improvement did not differ (P > 0.05). Of IVCM-positive cases, 10 (56%) underwent surgery despite prior anti-amoebic treatment, and 14 (78%) had 3 or more IVCM examinations during follow-up, with cysts (100%), dendritic cells (89%) and inflammatory infiltrate (67%) as the most prevalent features. Longitudinal IVCM indicated improvement in cysts, dendritic cells and subbasal nerves with treatment, while clinical resolution was not always consistent with complete absence of cysts.ConclusionsIn a real-world setting, IVCM has a high reliability in classifying AK-negative cases, while IVCM detects AK-positive cases more frequently than the gold-standard culture method, leading to its preferential use over the culture method where time or resources are limited. Despite this, a subset of cases are IVCM-inconclusive, the clinical course of referred patients is long requiring many hospital visits, and visual acuity in most cases does not improve with medical treatment alone. Information sharing across centers and standardization of referral and diagnostic routines is needed to exploit the full potential of IVCM in AK patient management.

The Impact of Inflation on the Performance of Stock Markets in the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries

This study explores the interplay between inflation and stock markets in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries from the 1990s to the early 21st century. Utilizing a PANEL time series model and Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach, we focus on the financial sector, emphasizing stock market performance. Our analysis of annual data reveals a significant, long-term impact of inflation on GCC stock markets, emphasizing a reciprocal relationship. We observe stability in this impact and identify potential variations among GCC countries. The study contributes valuable insights into the economic dynamics of the GCC region, with implications for investors, policymakers, and researchers navigating the intricate connection between inflation and stock market behavior.

Regional differences in beef cattle trade and movements associated with the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia

Context The COVID-19 pandemic caused mandated restrictions on movements and distancing of people with implications for meat supply chains. Despite the COVID restrictions, agricultural activities were permitted to continue as essential services in Australia. However, there were reported shortages of meat on the shelves of supermarkets and a general increase in the price of meat in Australia during the COVID period. Hence, there is a need to establish whether the restrictions affected upstream activities in Australia’s beef supply chain. Aim This study aims to examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and confounding factors including rainfall and export bans on beef cattle trade and movement in Australia. Methods Using annual data on beef cattle sold, purchased, transferred off-farm and transferred onto farms sourced from the database of the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences, a t-test analysis was conducted to establish the significant changes in cattle movement and trade for the pre-COVID (2014–2019) and COVID (2020–2022) periods. Additionally, a flexible least squares model augmented with a flexible generalised least squares model was used to assess the impact of confounding factors on cattle trade and movement. Key results The results indicate no significant change in the proportion of beef cattle sold nationwide. Tasmania, New South Wales, and Western Australia (WA) recorded significant changes (1.4% increase, 3.6% increase, and 3.8% decrease, respectively) in the proportion of beef cattle purchased. For WA, these changes were localised to changes that occurred in WA Central and Southern Wheat Belt and WA Southwest Coastal regions. Moreover, rainfall did not significantly impact cattle trade but did affect cattle movements. The export ban only significantly impacted beef cattle sold in Queensland. Conclusions Overall, the findings suggest that most regions in Australia did not experience significant changes in farm-level decisions regarding beef cattle movement and trade during the COVID period. Instead, minor adjustments were made to address the demand changes. Implications The findings imply that adopted policies that facilitated the implementation of biosecurity bubbles and the movements of animal transport workers for breeding facilities and abattoirs during the COVID period were effective in normalising farm-level operations.

Time Horizon for Forecasting the Number of Traffic Accidents

On Polish roads, there are more and more automobiles each year. This results in more people using the roadways. Because of this, the threat posed by traffic accidents, which involve the loss of human life and financial resources, is quickly expanding. The rise of motorization and the quickening expansion of the human population are to blame for this. The tiny amount of the dataset that may be utilized for research in this respect is the major problem in anticipating and evaluating data on road accidents. Despite the fact that road accidents result in millions of lives and injuries worldwide each year, they are not very common. Traffic accidents are still quite common despite the pandemic's reduction. The aim of the essay is to evaluate the temporal horizon of the predicted number of traffic accidents. For this reason, an estimate of the expected number of traffic accidents in the future years was made, and its effect on the average percentage error of the projection was computed. Based on the analysis of the input data on the number of road accidents (annual and monthly), the results show that monthly and annual data can be forecast up to six years in advance.

Impulse Response of External Debt Stock and Gross Capital Formation on Economic Growth in Bangladesh: Var Model, Granger Causality and Variance Decomposition Analysis

Purpose: This study employs an annual time series data set from 1987 to 2018 gathered from the World Development Indicators (WDI), 2021 to analyze the properties of external debt stock on financial progress(proxied by economic growth) in Bangladesh. Methodology: The objectives are determined using a variety of econometric techniques, including the Phillips-Perron (PP) unit root test, Var model, Johansen co integration test, Impulse Response Function (IRF), Variance decomposition function, and Granger causality test. The get the result of the Phillips-Perron (PP) unit root test which indicates the stationarity of all the variables at the initial difference. Findings: There is an expectant impact on financial progress (proxied by Gross Domestic Product Per capita) in Bangladesh, according to the short run Var model with the two independent variables External Debt Stock (proxied by public debt) and second lag of Gross Fixed Capital. Block Exogeneity/ Wald Tests and Johansen Co-integration test show that both lnEDS and lnGCF have a strong constructive impact on Bangladesh's financial progress in the short as well as long run. Pairwise, Granger Causality also indulgence the Bi-directional causality between lnGDPPC and lnEDS and Uni-directional causality from lnGCF to lnGDPPC. The influences of lnEDS and lnGCF on lnGDPPC are rising in the long term, showing that both variables are significantly exogenous on the dependent variable. Practical Implication: Bangladesh is now a fast-growing economy with several mega projects for infrastructural, human, and technological advancements such as roads, train, power, education, health, information technology, gas, and energy. External debt service and gross capital formation are crucial for Bangladeshi economic growth. The government should establish a priority aim for long-term economic growth by implementing suitable measures to control, maintain, regulate, and stabilize inflation at a reasonable level. Originality/Value: In a developing country, Savings within the country are insufficient to support investment for financial progress, according to the dual-gap theory and the Keynesian theory of public debt. As a result, bridging this gap for the required level of investment and achieving targeted economic growth will necessitate a bigger inflow of foreign aid or external borrowings. That’s why this study is very important. Limitations: Some limitations of this study include the absence of recent data with the factors. Also numerous factors can influence Bangladesh economic growth for instances, remittances, exchange rates and foreign direct investment all have a crucial impact on GDP growth.

Analysis of human errors in the operation of various treatment planning systems over a 10-year period.

The present study aimed to summarize and report data on errors related to treatment planning, which were collected by medical physicists. The following analyses were performed based on the 10-year error report data: (1) listing of high-risk errors that occurred and (2) the relationship between the number of treatments and error rates, (3) usefulness of the Automated Plan Checking System (APCS) with the Eclipse Scripting Application Programming Interface and (4) the relationship between human factors and error rates. Differences in error rates were observed before and after the use of APCS. APCS reduced the error rate by ~1% for high-risk errors and 3% for low-risk errors. The number of treatments was negatively correlated with error rates. Therefore, we examined the relationship between the workload of medical physicists and error occurrence and revealed that a very large workload may contribute to overlooking errors. Meanwhile, an increase in the number of medical physicists may lead to the detection of more errors. The number of errors was correlated with the number of physicians with less clinical experience; the error rates were higher when there were more physicians with less experience. This is likely due to the lack of training among clinically inexperienced physicians. An environment to provide adequate training is important, as inexperience in clinical practice can easily and directly lead to the occurrence of errors. In any environment, the need for additional plan checkers is an essential factor for eliminating errors.

Spatiotemporal distribution and risk factors for patient and diagnostic delays among groups with tuberculous pleurisy: an analysis of 5-year surveillance data in eastern China.

To understand and analyze the factors relating to patient and diagnostic delays among groups with tuberculous pleurisy (TP), and its spatiotemporal distribution in Zhejiang Province. Data of all tuberculous pleurisy patients were collected from the existing Tuberculosis Information Management System. A time interval of > 2 weeks between first symptom onset and visit to the designated hospital was considered a patient delay, and a time interval of > 2 weeks between the first visit and a confirmed TP diagnosis was considered a diagnostic delay. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to explore factors influencing patient and diagnostic delays in patients with TP. Spatial autocorrelation and spatiotemporal scan analyses were used to identify hot spots and risk clusters, respectively. In total, 10,044 patients with TP were included. The median time and interquartile range for patients seeking medical care and diagnosis were 15 (7-30) and 1 (0-8) days, respectively. The results showed that people aged > 65 years, retirees, and residents of Jinhua, Lishui, and Quzhou were positively correlated with patient delay, whereas retreatment patients, houseworkers, unemployed people, and residents of Zhoushan or Ningbo were positively correlated with diagnostic delay. Additionally, high-risk clusters of patient delays were observed in the midwestern Zhejiang Province. The most likely clusters of TP diagnostic delays were found in southeast Zhejiang Province. In summary, patient delay of TP in Zhejiang province was shorter than for pulmonary tuberculosis in China, while the diagnostic delay had no difference. Age, city, occupation, and treatment history were related to both patient and diagnostic delays in TP. Interventions in central and western regions of Zhejiang Province should be initiated to improve the early detection of TP. Additionally, the allocation of health resources and accessibility of health services should be improved in the central and eastern regions of Zhejiang Province.

The National Cancer Aid monitoring (NCAM-online) of ultraviolet radiation risk and protection behavior: a population-based observational trend study with four annual online survey waves

BackgroundUltraviolet (UV) radiation is the most important risk factor for skin cancer development. Sunlight is the main source of UV radiation in the general population. In addition, tanning beds are a source of artificial UV radiation. Since the incidence of skin cancer is increasing worldwide, it is necessary to monitor UV-related risk behaviors such as intentional indoor and outdoor tanning, as well as sun protection behavior in the general population and specific subgroups and settings. This is the aim of the National Cancer Aid Monitoring online (NCAM-online), a continuation and further development of the NCAM.MethodsThe NCAM-online is a longitudinal trend study consisting of four annual survey waves. Each year, 4,000 individuals aged 16–65 years living in Germany will be surveyed using online questionnaires. Each year, intentional indoor and outdoor tanning will be assessed. In addition, varying specific topics regarding skin cancer prevention, such as the utilization of skin cancer screening, will be addressed in the questionnaires.DiscussionThe findings of the NCAM-online will provide an important basis for the German Cancer Aid and Working Group on Dermatologic Prevention (Arbeitsgemeinschaft Dermatologische Prävention, ADP) to develop targeted prevention campaigns and projects aimed at preventing skin cancer. The explorative nature of the NCAM-online allows for the identification of new potential starting points for prevention and education. In addition, the longitudinal design allows for a description of the trend in the prevalence of intentional tanning. For tanning bed use, representative trend data from 2012 are available for Germany, to which NCAM-online will add annual data until 2027.

Investigating Factors Affecting Renewable and Nonrenewable Electricity Generation in Iran

This study identifies key elements that facilitate the transition of power generation from non-renewable to renewable sources. Annual data from 1977 to 2018 and an autoregressive distributed lag model are used in the study. The gross domestic product, industrialization, urbanization, fuel, and power prices, as well as the dollar exchange rate, are employed as independent variables. The study takes the Iran-Iraq War and nuclear sanctions into account. The findings show that, in the short run, all variables—aside from the exchange rate—have an impact on the generation of electricity from renewable sources. Only natural gas prices, industrialization, and gross domestic product are effective in the short run, for power generation from non-renewable energies. In the long run, all variables, with the exception of electricity price, are effective in producing power from renewable sources, and all variables, with the exception of fuel prices and industrialization, are effective in producing electricity from non-renewable sources. The findings also indicate that nuclear sanctions have a detrimental impact on the production of electricity from renewable sources and a beneficial impact on the production of electricity from non-renewable sources.