Aggregate Perspective Research Articles

Constructing a quantification tool of the progress towards the green economy: Aggregation perspective

Constructing a quantification tool of the progress towards the green economy: Aggregation perspective

Exploring adolescent contraceptive counseling: A hypothetical daughter scenario

ObjectivesWe aimed to describe contraceptive methods used by clinicians who counsel adolescents to create an aggregate perspective which could be shared with patients. We also explored which method clinicians would recommend to a hypothetical daughter to identify associations between clinicians who had used long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) and potential recommendations. MethodsAn online survey was sent to pediatric and adolescent gynecology academic societies and fellowship/division directors to share with their clinicians. Frequency and percentage of self-reported personal/partner contraceptive method ever use was calculated. Bivariate tests evaluated the relationship between personal LARC use and contraception recommendations. ResultsAcross 669 clinicians, 46 % reported personal/partner LARC use, and 77 % recommended LARC to a hypothetical daughter. LARC users were more likely to recommend LARC for a hypothetical daughter (89 % LARC users recommend it versus 66 % non-LARC users, p < 0.01). ConclusionResults can support shared decision-making counseling discussions. When families ask, “what do you use” or “what would you start for your daughter,” clinicians might consider sharing this aggregate perspective. Practice implicationsIn this study, clinicians who personally use LARC were more likely to recommend LARC for a hypothetical daughter. Clinicians can share this aggregate perspective to reduce personal bias during contraceptive counselling.

Nostalgia for the future of Construction Grammar

Abstract Construction Grammar is a nomadic family of theoretical approaches whose members are constantly moving in various directions. The diversity in construction-based approaches is a clear sign of a thriving and tolerant research community, but it also risks muddying the waters, leading to potential confusion. In this paper, I argue that the main source of confusion about Construction Grammar stems from the community’s gradual evolution from the traditional view of languages as static, idealized entities (the “aggregate” perspective) to the view of language as a complex adaptive system (the “population” perspective). While the aggregate perspective abstracts away as much as possible from variation and language usage, the population perspective greatly emphasizes the dynamics of language and situated communicative interactions. This paper illustrates what it means to perform constructional analyses from the population perspective; and argues that Construction Grammar is particularly well-positioned to lead the way in this new kind of linguistics, indicating that our community has a bright future ahead.

Effects of perceived situational factors on plastic packaging waste recycling behavior through environmental attitude

AbstractThis study explores the effects of perceived situational factors (cost, time, and effort) related to plastic packaging waste recycling behavior. It also examines the mediating role of environmental attitudes in this relationship. An online questionnaire-based survey administered to a pan-Canadian sample of 1000 respondents reveals that from an aggregate perspective, perceived situational factors positively and directly impact environmental attitudes and plastic packaging waste recycling. Because environmental attitude is also positively related to plastic recycling, environmental attitudes partially mediate the link between perceived situational factors and plastic recycling. From a piecemeal perspective, the perception of a higher degree of inexpensiveness, fastness, and effortlessness directly affects environmental attitudes and plastic packaging waste recycling. Hence, environmental attitude partially mediates the effect of consumers' perceived situational factors and explains their impact on plastic packaging waste recycling.

Mechanistic exploration of Perfluorooctanoic Acid-Induced Hen egg white lysozyme aggregation at physiological Conditions: Spectroscopic and thermodynamic insights

Perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) have garnered attention in various scientific fields for their harmful effects on biological systems, including the endocrine, immune, and nervous systems. While research has delved into PFAS-protein binding, their impact on protein aggregation remains uncharted. In this study, we investigated the effect of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) on the aggregation of Hen Egg White Lysozyme (HEWL), a model protein known to aggregate under harsh conditions. We uncovered compelling insights by employing an array of spectroscopic, computational and thermal techniques. Isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC), molecular docking, and fluorescence spectroscopy reveal strong PFOA-HEWL interactions via hydrogen bonding, hydrophobic forces, and ionic interactions. Moreover, techniques like synchronous fluorescence spectroscopy, circular dichroism, and FTIR demonstrates that PFOA induces substantial conformational changes in HEWL, profoundly affecting its secondary structure. Increased PFOA concentrations have been observed to lead to HEWL aggregation under physiological conditions (pH 7.4 and room temperature), verified through various assays and imaging techniques. This is the first comprehensive exploration of PFOA’s influence on protein aggregation. Our findings provide valuable insights into the health risks of PFOA exposure from a protein aggregation perspective, advancing our knowledge in environmental ecology, toxicology, pathology, and life sciences.

The Financial Density and Improvement of Urban Technological Efficiency: An Estimation Based on the Stochastic Frontier Approach

Exploring the relationship between finance and economic growth is a key direction of financial economics. However, most of the literature starts from the aggregate perspective and uses the GDP or per capita GDP as the explained variable to study the role of finance. Such a perspective ignores the heterogeneity of financial activities with respect to geographical distribution and makes it difficult to distinguish the roles of factor input and efficiency improvement. Because of this, this article introduces a “density” perspective on new economic geography and the measurement of the efficiency of the transition of development economics into financial economics. This article uses the stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) method to measure the technical efficiency (TE) of 272 cities in China from 2005 to 2018 and then, based on “forward-looking” and “backward-looking” methods, measures the impact of financial density on urban technical efficiency. This study found that overall, before the financial crisis in 2008, the contribution of financial density to technical efficiency showed a downward trend, and in the regional and provincial dimensions, the distribution of financial density’s contribution to technical efficiency was generally in line with that of backward regions, with less regularity in developed regions. In the urban dimension, the contribution rate of financial density to resource-based cities with slow technological progress or advanced cities with rich financial resources is not very prominent and may even play a negative role; however, cities that are at a medium level of development, rich in population resources, have convenient transportation, and have a certain industrial foundation can greatly promote the improvement of technical efficiency. Therefore, it may be possible to optimize the marginal contribution of urban financial density to the technical efficiency of Chinese cities by encouraging the flow of financial resources and activities from cities with small marginal effects to those with large marginal effects.

Investigating the aggregation perspective of Dengue virus proteome

Dengue viruses are human pathogens that are transmitted through mosquitoes. Apart from the typical symptoms associated with viral fevers, DENV infections are known to cause several neurological complications such as meningitis, encephalitis, intracranial haemorrhage, retinopathies along with the more severe, and sometimes fatal, vascular leakage and dengue shock syndrome. This study was designed to investigate, in detail, the predicted viral protein aggregation prone regions among all serotypes. Further, in order to understand the cross-talk between viral protein aggregation and aggregation of cellular proteins, cross-seeding experiments between the DENV NS1 (1-30), corresponding to the β-roll domain and the diabetes hallmark protein, amylin, were performed. Various techniques such as fluorescence spectroscopy, circular dichroism, atomic force microscopy and immunoblotting have been employed for this. We observe that the DENV proteomes have many predicted APRs and the NS1 (1-30) of DENV1-3, 2K and capsid anchor of DENV2 and DENV4 are capable of forming amyloids, in vitro. Further, the DENV NS1 (1-30), aggregates are also able to cross-seed and enhance amylin aggregation and vice-versa. This knowledge may lead to an opportunity for designing suitable inhibitors of protein aggregation that may be beneficial for viral infections and comorbidities.

Business Models for Energy Community in the Aggregator Perspective: State of the Art and Research Gaps

Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) are spreading under the pressure of climate change mitigation plans and the framework, recognized as the most suitable to exploit DER diffusion, is the Energy Community (EC). Understanding the role of energy companies, especially Aggregators, in this context, is still an open topic, as it is not clear how they can support members in the aggregation process and how they create value through their business. The aim of the study is therefore to revise whatever is currently present in the research agenda and consequently a systematic literature review has been carried out. The contribution of this work consists of illustrating the main features of Aggregators, pointing out how they implement their strategies in the energy markets, with which services they capture value, who their partners and customers are, what the financial aspects are of their activities with respect to the size of the aggregated clusters, and, in conclusion, which are the main business model structures currently deployed. Then, considerations are made concerning EC context, identifying the areas where an Aggregator could usefully support communities’ establishment and management, solving well-known hindrances, and what gaps future research should fill.

Financial transfers from parents to adult children

This paper uses 1996–2014 longitudinal HRS data to establish the relative importance of intervivos transfers, bequests and coresidency in the United States. We find that when computing the relative importance of intervivos transfers versus bequests, the aggregate perspective that pools all data into a single cross-section is very different than the parent-level longitudinal perspective, highlighting the special value of panel data. This difference reflects the fact that large bequests are highly concentrated and play an influential role at the aggregate level, while at the micro parent-level, intervivos transfers constitute the main form of financial support for most parents. Regarding coresidency, we find that although older children and parents tend to coreside when the child is helping the parent, coresidency tends to be more prevalent among poorer, younger parents and their children. Children who ever coreside with parents also receive larger total intervivos transfers.

DDE-GAN: Integrating a Data-Driven Design Evaluator Into Generative Adversarial Networks for Desirable and Diverse Concept Generation

Abstract Generative adversarial networks (GANs) have shown remarkable success in various generative design tasks, from topology optimization to material design, and shape parametrization. However, most generative design approaches based on GANs lack evaluation mechanisms to ensure the generation of diverse samples. In addition, no GAN-based generative design model incorporates user sentiments in the loss function to generate samples with high desirability from the aggregate perspectives of users. Motivated by these knowledge gaps, this paper builds and validates a novel GAN-based generative design model with an offline design evaluation function to generate samples that are not only realistic but also diverse and desirable. A multimodal data-driven design evaluation (DDE) model is developed to guide the generative process by automatically predicting user sentiments for the generated samples based on large-scale user reviews of previous designs. This paper incorporates DDE into the StyleGAN structure, a state-of-the-art GAN model, to enable data-driven generative processes that are innovative and user-centered. The results of experiments conducted on a large dataset of footwear products demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed DDE-GAN in generating high-quality, diverse, and desirable concepts.

Building the cooling roads with high thermal conductivity pavements to relieve urban heat island effect

This study aims to propose a new highly thermally conductive pavement (HTCP) structure and evaluate the cooling effect of the structural layers and near-surface air. The HTCP consisted of coarse quartzite aggregates with high thermal conductivity instead of limestone. The HTCP and conventional asphalt pavement layers were placed in the environmental chamber. The incandescent lamp was used to simulate solar radiation to analyze the air temperature changes of the structural layers and near-surface air. The test results show that quartzite improves the thermal inertia of asphalt pavement layers. And the HTCP effectively transfers the heat accumulated in the upper layer and reduces the daily temperature of structure layers and near-surface air. However, HTCP releases more sensible heat at night, negatively impacting the urban heat island effect. This research contributes to the improvement of HTCP from an aggregate perspective and provides new ideas for mitigating the UHI effect.

Optimal management of an active community for fair selection of electric vehicles in a V2G event

Smart Grids concept allows the development of new technologies, such as Vehicle to Grid (V2G) interaction, making it possible to transfer energy from an Electric Vehicle (EV) to the grid and vice versa, thus facilitating the implementation of electric mobility. However, the system&apos;s reliability and security can be jeopardized by emerging such uncertain players. To aid the complex management of active local communities and reduce the response uncertainty, the authors propose a methodology capable of dealing with both active consumers and EV by choosing the proper participants using a fairness model according to the context in which the events are triggered. Furthermore, the authors introduced a contextual remuneration for continuous participation, studying the impact from the Aggregator perspective.

Asymmetric effects of non-ferrous metal price shocks on clean energy stocks: Evidence from a quantile-on-quantile method

Combining advanced quantile-on-quantile (QQ) regression and causality-in-quantiles (QC) methods, we examine the asymmetric effects of non-ferrous metal price shocks on clean energy stocks at aggregate and sub-sector levels. From the aggregate perspective, the impact of non-ferrous metal price shocks is strongly negative for bull clean energy stock markets but is positive under bear circumstances. According to QC analysis, non-ferrous metal price shocks can effectively predict returns on clean energy stocks in some quantiles. Sub-sectors of clean energy stocks react differently, proving the heterogeneity of different industries. Synergistic movements between non-ferrous metal price shocks and some clean energy sectors in bear markets are detected, indicating that non-ferrous metals are not safe havens for clean energy stock markets under extreme market conditions. Furthermore, non-ferrous metals have a significantly stronger negative impact on clean energy stocks during the epidemic, demonstrating the structural changes effect of COVID-19.

China’s Systemic Financial Risk: Basic Dimensions, Key Areas, and Evolving Trends

The COVID-19 pandemic, the regulation of real estate, and external uncertainties are the core variables in the recent evolution of China’s financial risks, and overall planning and structural deployment are the key guarantees for China’s financial stability. From an aggregate perspective, China’s systemic financial risk tended to ease overall in 2021, but remained high. The risk profile of China’s financial system in 2021 presented five important features. First, the macro leverage ratio fell slightly, but exposed the hidden dangers of balance sheet recession. Second, there was a certain blockage in the transmission of financial system liquidity to the real economy. Third, the fragility of the financial system was further exposed, the bond default balance reached a new high, the structural differentiation of bonds between state-owned and private enterprises became prominent, and private enterprise default became more serious. Fourth, the contagion effect of domestic cross-market financial risks remained significant. Fifth, the international political and economic situation was volatile, and spillover effects such as the rising prices of raw materials, the inauguration of a new US administration, and the shift of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy were significantly strengthened. In terms of key risk areas, the risks of the real estate market, hidden government debt, and small- and medium-sized domestic banks were quite prominent. in 2022, pandemic prevention and control, economic recovery, and structural upgrading will remain the main themes of China’s development. China’s financial risks are generally under control, but the country will still face major risks such as a high macro leverage ratio, tight market liquidity, increasing debt vulnerability, significant spillover effects, and rising volatility in the international market.

Passenger-oriented traffic management integrating perimeter control and regional bus service frequency setting using 3D-pMFD

Public buses and private vehicles are two main transportation modes for urban road traffic. It has strong flow interactions between the two traffic modes. From data analysis, the vehicle density of a traffic mode not only determine its flow, but also affect the flow of the other mode. With such mixed vehicle flows, the application of traditional traffic management that controls each vehicle flow system separately is limited. Thus, it is beneficial to control both bus and private vehicle flows in an integrated way. Under such bi-modal traffic management, the network efficiency cannot be reflected by vehicle flows since the occupancies of the traffic modes are greatly different. It leads to that the control objective should be necessarily based on passengers. To do so, we adopt bi-modal passenger-based macroscopic fundamental diagram (3D-pMFD) to capture the relations among vehicle accumulations and the total passenger flow in a network. From this aggregate perspective, a passenger-oriented traffic control strategy is proposed by integrating the perimeter control and the regional bus service frequency setting. The characteristics of both traffic modes, especially the operation strategy of buses, are taken into account in the model to describe the bi-modal traffic flow dynamics. A control framework comprised of optimization and simulation is established using model predictive control. The corresponding passenger-based optimization problem is solved by a modified genetic algorithm. With multiple data collected from the network of Shenzhen City in China, numerical experiments are designed to verify the validity and efficiency of the proposed integrated control strategy. Results show that: (1) the proposed strategy can maintain a high level of passenger flow during peak hour with a relatively high demand; (2) the interest of private vehicles is guaranteed even if buses are more recommended in the control strategy; (3) the crowding degree in a bus is reduced properly, which is able to improve the attraction of buses during peak hours; and (4) the proposed passenger-oriented objective results in a comprehensively good performance of the bi-modal network system.

Separating aggregate discouraged and added worker effects: the case of a former transition country

Research background: We analyse the added worker effect (AWE) and the discouraged worker effect (DWE) from an aggregate perspective. The first effect refers to an increase in labour force participation in response to a decrease in the wage rate. The second effect refers to the decision by workers who have been unsuccessful in their job search to leave the labour market or to decrease their labour force participation. For our analysis, we use the case of Poland, a country with a persistently low labour force participation rate.&#x0D; Purpose of the article: While previous studies focused on the net of the two effects, we aim to analyse the two effects both separately and simultaneously. We propose a new approach for analysing the two effects. We generalise and model them as resulting from different shocks: (i) the AWE as the result of a negative wage income shock, and (ii) the DWE as the result of a positive job search time shock. The underlying assumption is that both shocks have at least a transitory effect on the labour force participation rate. However, we also track the potential long-lasting effects of these shocks, and we analyse the reactions of gender and age groups to them. While this approach demonstrates the robustness of our results, it also provides the range of the sensitivity, as it shows that there are large differences in the magnitude of the AWE and the DWE for different labour market cohorts.&#x0D; Methods: We use the multivariate unobserved component model to extract the AWE and the DWE, and we then use VAR models, applying sign and exclusion restrictions to model the underlying shocks. We use quarterly data for Poland in 1995?2019. Most of these data come from the Labour Force Survey, while the rest come from Statistics Poland.&#x0D; Findings &amp; value added: In contrast to previous literature, which analysed only the net effect of the two effects, we model the AWE and the DWE separately. Contrary to the findings of previous research, our approach seems to confirm that both effects are simultaneously present in the labour market, and both effects influence the labour force participation rate. Thus, we find that both effects are significant. Specifically, we show that the AWE is stronger, but transitory; while the DWE is weaker, but long-lasting.

Outsourcing and public expenditure: an aggregate perspective with regional data

ABSTRACT Although the theoretical impact of outsourcing on public spending is ambiguous ex-ante, previous cross-country comparisons point towards a positive impact on aggregate. We build a novel database that allows us to explore the association between outsourcing and public spending among Spanish regions between 2002 and 2018. This approach greatly reduces unobserved heterogeneity and limits concerns about bias in the estimates. Our baseline results point towards a positive association between outsourcing and expenditure. However, our analysis also unmasks important divergences among expenditure categories and economic conditions. The results are robust to the inclusion of efficiency indicators and several controls.

Aggregate liquidity premium and cross-sectional returns: Evidence from China

The Chinese stock market incurs huge illiquidity costs. Liquidity has different aspects but literature rarely measures it from an aggregate perspective. To capture liquidity along various dimensions and more consistently, we propose an aggregate liquidity premium with a partial least squares approach by aggregating information on 12 liquidity-related firm characteristics in the Chinese stock market. The aggregate liquidity predictor generates significantly higher expected stock returns than individual characteristics, remains robust to different information aggregation methods, and reflects the multidimensional feature of liquidity. Behavioral mispricing theory helps explain the aggregate liquidity premium because illiquidity limits arbitrage to correct mispricing. As liquidity is important and traditional factor models limitedly explain it, we develop a new-factor model to capture the aggregate liquidity premium. The aggregate liquidity premium in China indicates that policymakers should improve market liquidity.

Optimal allocation of near-expiry food in a retailer-foodbank supply network with economic and environmental considerations: An aggregator's perspective

Wastage of perishable food products is a severe concern to society and needs to be addressed to ensure food security for all. Moreover, the food waste when sent to landfills, decomposes to produce greenhouse gases like methane and carbon dioxide. The emergence of food banks and aggregators has abated the problem of food wastage to a certain extent. An aggregator, which connects the retailers to the food banks, plays a critical role in ensuring that the food reaches the food banks on time. However, to ensure food security and reduce wastage of food, it is essential that food aggregators remain profitable. The aggregator has to determine the number of heterogeneous vehicles to hire from the market and allocate them their route on a daily basis depending on donations committed by the retailers and also take into account potential environmental impact from the decomposition of food waste and carbon emitted from hired vehicles. Hence, we propose decision support for aggregators, using data from an aggregator based in Turkey, which can help in reducing food wastage by allocating the donated food items from retailers to food banks while maximizing the profitability of the aggregator and minimizing the environmental impact. We have also analyzed how the availability of different types of vehicles can impact the aggregator's profit. Furthermore, the effect of various model parameters such as transportation cost, and percentage of retailers' gain paid to the aggregator on the total profit along with the impact of distances on types of vehicles hired is also analyzed. We have compared two strategies that the aggregator could possibly employ and generate managerial insights.

Assessment of the effect of broadband expansion on the economy reviewed

AbstractDespite consensus about the positive impact of broadband expansion on the economy, from an aggregate perspective, this impact does not seem to be homogeneous for the whole economy. By using a two‐way multivariate panel data model subjected to Bayesian estimation, this study aims to determine the effect of broadband expansion on Brazilian economic sectors. To account for regional differences, the sampled data were grouped into clusters (clustering) to spot municipalities with similar characteristics. The results indicate that the impact of broadband expansion is not positive for all sectors. Actually, it was positive in more dynamic and technology‐intensive sectors (e.g., industrial and service sectors) but negative for the agricultural sector.