Competitive Process Research Articles

Variable valence I3−/I− ionic bridge assisting CuI nanoparticle/BiOI nanosheet S-scheme photocatalyst with hydrophobic surface for boosting CO2 conversion with 100 % CO selectivity

The photocatalyst film, composed of tetragonal BiOI nanosheets and cubic phase CuI nanoparticles, was synthesized on the FTO substrate by a simple electro-deposition method. The orderly crisscrossed nanosheet structure caused exterior hydrophobic property, resisting the excess H2O molecules and further inhibiting the competitive H2O reduction process. The novel BiOI/CuI catalyst exhibited excellent photocatalytic ability of CO2 reduction into CO with 100 % selectivity in H2O vapor. Typically, the optimal 150BiOI/CuI photocatalyst exhibited CO yield of 7237.65 μmol/cm2 after 11 h of simulated sunlight illumination, achieving quantum efficiency of 2.5 % at 380 nm. The excellent performance of the BiOI/CuI composite film in photocatalytic CO2 reduction can be attributed to the construction of hydrophobic surface and S-scheme heterojunction with I3−/I− redox mediator, as confirmed by the in-situ XPS, hole injection test and cyclic voltammetry results. This study lays the groundwork for employing highly efficient iodide-based photocatalysts in gas-liquid-solid triphase catalytic systems.

De-westernising competition: ‘Harmony of competition’ in Chinese higher education

ABSTRACT The discourse regarding globalisation and particularly ‘global competition’ has appeared in a range of socio-economic areas and higher education is no exception. Global competition has been the policy context in which a range of national excellence initiatives have been developed. These have often involved competitive processes with significant funding as a core incentive for universities to participate. Several countries have implemented these to build ‘World Class Universities’ (WCU) but often this concept is linked to global rankings and a western model of what world class is. The aim of this study is to critically examine the characteristics of China’s WCU policies, particularly as a competition discourse. It aims to go beyond Western-centric paradigms to capture a more inclusive and diverse understanding of competitive dynamics across various cultural and regional contexts. The article first draws upon critical globalisation studies, then it reviews ‘indigenous’ Chinese policy concepts of ‘world class-ness’ in HE, next it examines the construction of higher education (HE) competition in the Chinese national and institutional contexts, and finally it conducts a thematic review of the main Chinese WCU policies and the strategy and implementation documents of the ‘core’ WCU institutions with respect to the indigenous concepts. Our study’s findings will contribute to a nuanced understanding of competition in HE settings – it examines and challenges the tendency of the competition discourse to reduce distinctions between national contexts.

A feasibility evaluation of a peer support intervention for social participation in China

PurposeThis study aims to report on the feasibility, acceptability and outcomes of a peer support program designed to promote social participation for adults with serious mental illness (SMI) in China.Design/methodology/approachThe authors used a community-based participatory research approach to adapt and test a six-month, culturally responsive peer program with 68 participants. Peer supporters were trained and supervised in Guangzhou, China. Peer workers were hired via a competitive process and completed both classroom and field training. Study participants were offered individual and group socialization activities. Participants completed measures on recovery, quality of life, functioning and symptoms at three time points (pre-, post- and follow-up).FindingsNearly 90% of participants expressed satisfaction with their peer supporters and the frequency of services. Findings showed a significant increasing trend for the social relationships domain of quality of life from baseline to follow-up. Female participants reported significantly increased recovery from pre to post and increased psychological quality of life pre-follow-up as compared to their male counterparts. Supervision logs documented positive gains from participants such as increased help-seeking, improved social skills, enhanced emotion regulation and self-confidence and established routine, alongside challenges like inconsistent engagement, low service incentives and an overreliance on social workers. Peer supporters also reported concerns about their own lack of skills and in navigating relationships between participants and their family members.Originality/valuePeer interventions have been well studied in Western countries but underexplored in China. This research addresses this gap by presenting a peer program aimed at enhancing the social participation of Chinese with SMI.

Demographic but not competitive time lags can transiently amplify climate-induced changes in vegetation carbon storage.

How terrestrial ecosystems will accumulate carbon as the climate continues to change is a major source of uncertainty in projections of future climate. Under growth-stimulating environmental change, time lags inherent in population and community dynamic processes have been posed to dampen, or alternatively amplify, short-term carbon gain in terrestrial vegetation, but these outcomes can be difficult to predict. To theoretically frame this problem, we developed a simple model of vegetation dynamics that identifies the stage-structured demographic and competitive processes that could govern the timescales of carbon storage and loss. We show that demographic lags associated with growth-stimulating environmental change can allow a rapid increase in population-level carbon storage that is lost back to the atmosphere in later years. However, this transient carbon storage only emerges when environmental change increases the transition of adult individuals into a larger size class that suffers markedly higher mortality. Otherwise, demographic lags simply slow carbon accumulation. Counterintuitively, an analogous tradeoff between maximum adult size and survivorship in two-species models, coupled with environmental change-driven replacement, does not generate the transient carbon gain seen in the single-species models. Instead lags in competitive replacement slow the approach to the eventual carbon trajectory. Together, our results suggest that time lags inherent in demographic and compositional turnover tend to slow carbon accumulation in systems responding to growth-stimulating environmental change. Only under specific conditions will lagged demographic processes in such systems drive transient carbon accumulation, conditions that investigators can examine in nature to help project future carbon trajectories.

Large Divergence of Projected High Latitude Vegetation Composition and Productivity Due To Functional Trait Uncertainty

AbstractVegetation distribution and composition are expected to change in northern high latitudes under rapid warming, which regulates ecosystem functions but remains challenging to predict. Vegetation change arises from the interplay of chronic climate trends such as warming and transient demographic processes of recruitment, growth, competition, and mortality. Most predictive models overlooked the role of demographic dynamics controlled by plant traits. Here, we simulate vegetation dynamics at the Kougarok Hillslope site in Alaska under historical and future climates using the E3SM Land Model coupled to the Functionally Assembled Terrestrial Simulator (ELM‐FATES). To evaluate the roles of plant traits, we parameterize the model with 5,265 trait configurations representing diverse physiological and demographic strategies. Results show current modeled biomass, composition, and productivity are most sensitive to traits controlling photosynthetic capacity, carbon allocation, allometry, and phenology. Among all trait configurations, ∼5% reproduce in situ biomass and plant functional type (PFT) composition measured in 2016, that are indistinguishable from these two observed ecosystem states. Notably, these same trait configurations produce diverging biomass, composition, and productivity under future climate, where the uncertainty attributable to traits is twice the change attributable to climate change. The variation of projected productivity arises from emerging PFT composition under novel climate regimes, primarily explained by traits controlling cold‐induced mortality, recruitment, and allometry. Our findings highlight the importance and uncertainty of demographic dynamics and its interaction with climate change in shaping Arctic vegetation change. Improved model predictions will likely benefit from explicit consideration of vegetation demography and better constraints of critical traits.

О конституционно-правовом закреплении публичного статуса адвокатуры

This article is devoted to understanding the constitutional and legal consolidation of the public status of the bar as a non-governmental institution of social structure, serving as a mechanism for the implementation of constitutional guarantees of the rule of law and judicial protection of rights. Based on the philosophy of modern times and the basic postulates of the general theory of conflict, the work examines the competitive process of learning the truth in justice by organizing a system in the form of a simulated controlled conflict. Keywords

Study on ECG Signal Classification and Athlete Health Analysis Based on Attention Mechanism

Abstract In the training and competition process of athletes, their bodies are subjected to various levels of load and stress. As an important diagnostic tool, ECG signals can provide deep insights into the cardiac function of athletes, including heart rate, rhythm, and changes in cardiac electrical activity. By conducting a thorough examination of ECG readings, we are able to quickly identify possible heart conditions or irregularities, which is essential for preserving the heart health of athletes. However, ECG signals are highly complex and multidimensional. To accurately classify these signals, it is necessary to select the most representative and discriminative features. However, this is not an easy task, and the selection of effective features remains a pressing issue. To address this problem, this paper proposes the CSNet classification network model. This framework eradicates disruptions in electrocardiogram signals, performs attribute extraction via a direct network configuration, and combines channel focus mechanisms and spatial focus mechanisms to enhance attribute representation and categorization capabilities. Furthermore, to retain the temporal information of ECG signals, we introduce the Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU), which helps to better capture temporal patterns and dependencies in the signals, thus enabling more accurate classification of ECG signals.

PRINCIPLES FOR LEADING REFORMS AND POLICY CHANGE IN EDUCATION SYSTEMS (The Israeli case)

The increasing processes of globalization and competitiveness, and the increasing complexity of organizations and the goals they promote, make changes necessary in the last decades to adapt the public systems to internal and external changes. Therefore, promoting organizational changes and performing change moves are the main part of modern organizational activity, policy, and leading reforms, and considerable resources are allocated for them. This article presents and analyses various innovative opinions and perspectives of approaches to educational policy and focus on principles for implementing educational policy reforms in the countries. this analysis is made through a critical literature review, which analyzes professional literature based on empirical research in education, national policy approaches, and organization management. The analyses mainly present pragmatic aspects that influence on a day-to-day basis strategy characteristic from a macro and micro point of view in educational policy management. The global McKinsey report (from 2018) is deeply reviewed and so are the sources from the OECD international library. This expanded mix is integrated with the researcher's approach and accumulated experience, which will be reflected in an interdisciplinary analysis of the proposed reform, emphasizing the Israeli case. The summarizing part includes a comparative discussion, divided into conclusions between the McKinsey report conclusions and the required operation for implementation in Israel and a final summary

A real-time embedded system designed for NILM studies with a novel competitive decision process algorithm

A real-time embedded system designed for NILM studies with a novel competitive decision process algorithm

AGE-RELATED DIFFERENCES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF MOTOR ABILITIES IN VOLLEYBALL

There are a large number of publications related to conditioning in volleyball and in general. However, a very small part of them are related to the development of motor abilities in an age aspect. Such a study would be very difficult to implement, but at the same time, it would be beneficial in terms of the selection and sports orientation of youth volleyball. Volleyball as a sport has developed extremely dynamically in recent years, which makes it even more demanding in terms of fitness. The basic skills necessary for successful implementation in sports are complex and based on the athletes' ability to jump, sprint, and hit. From this point of view, the interest in this research was dictated, with the primary goal of determining the values of the main signs related to the volleyball game and compiling normative tables for control and assessment of preparedness. The research tasks also arise from the goal set in this way. To investigate the differences in the main essential characteristics of the volleyball game regarding age. To propose standards of control and evaluation. The methods we used to solve the problems are anthropometry, chronometry, tensiometry, speedometry, and mathematical-statistical methods (frequency, variation analysis, and sigma method). Results: The most significant increase in women was observed in the results of the jump tests and the speed of the serve (over 20 %) and smaller within 10% in the running tests. We attribute these results to the fact that the listed movements emphasize the training and competition process. Based on the obtained results, norms for evaluating the readiness of the contestants have been drawn up.

Sustainable Business Development Strategy In Cassava Cracker Production Business

Cassava is a plant originating from Central and South America, as a type of tuber plant that has high carbohydrates. As many people know, food made from cassava will give a feeling of satiety, so in some regions in Indonesia cassava is used as a staple food as a substitute for rice. As a root crop that cannot last long, some people take the initiative to process cassava into dry food that can be stored for several months but still has a good taste as a snack or food accompaniment. Several groups of housewives took the initiative to process cassava into savory and crispy crackers, and can increase family income. As a cassava cracker processor in the countryside, it still uses a chopper for raw materials that are still simple to produce cassava crackers. The purpose of this study is to find out the level of effectiveness of cassava cracker processing so that it has more selling value and export quality, with a strategy that can develop a sustainable business, so that it becomes one of the products that is competitive and exported abroad. In terms of production, cassava cracker orders are quite promising, but are still constrained by several conditions that result in not fulfilling all orders. This makes the researcher intend to help producers to be able to increase the production of cassava crackers that have characteristics and can be competitive until they are exported abroad. The strategies offered will have an impact on improving business results and sustainable and competitive cracker production processes, testing the quality of cassava crackers, packaging and branding, and marketing strategies. The expected output is that researchers can contribute to sustainable business development for producers and can be published in international journals.

Engaging With Health Consumers in Scientific Conferences-As Partners not Bystanders.

It is now widely recognised that engaging consumers in research activities can enhance the quality, equity and relevance of the research. Much of the commentary about consumer engagement in research focuses on research processes and implementation, rather than dissemination in conference settings. This article offers reflections and learnings from consumers, researchers and conference organisers on the 12th Health Services Research Conference, a biennial conference hosted by the Health Services Research Association of Australia and New Zealand (HSRAANZ). We were awarded funds via a competitive application process by Bellberry Limited, a national not-for-profit agency with a focus on improving research quality, to incorporate consumer engagement strategies in conference processes and evaluate their impact. Strategies included consumer scholarships, a buddy system, designated quiet space and consumer session co-chairs; the reflections explored in this paper were collected in the funded, independent evaluation. Our insights suggest a need for more structured consumer involvement in conference planning and design, as well as the development of specific engagement strategies. To move toward active partnership in scientific conference settings, our experience reinforces the need to engage consumers as members in designing and conducting research and in presenting research and planning conference content and processes. Consumer engagement in research dissemination at conferences is the focus of this viewpoint article. Consumers were involved in the conception of this article and have contributed to authorship at all stages of revisions and edits.

Remote Summer Research Program to Improve Opportunity and Mentorship for Underrepresented Students With Interest in Orthopaedic Surgery: 3-Year Experiences.

Medical students are challenged with a limited number of research opportunities to help prepare for an exceptionally competitive process for matching in an orthopaedic residency. The aim of this study was to assess the 3-year experience of our 8 to 10-week remote summer research program in support of underrepresented students with an interest in orthopaedic surgery. We received over 500 applications, and a total of 37 students (7.4%) participated in the program over the past 3 years. A total of 14 faculty mentors were matched with 1 or 2 students each. The research program delivered a curriculum including (1) research-related topics led by a content expert; (2) weekly faculty lectures discussing topics including orthopaedic conditions, diversity in orthopaedics, leadership, and work-life balance; and (3) a minimum of 8 weeks of mentorship experience with an assigned faculty and a peer mentor. Students and faculty were surveyed to measure skill progression, research productivity, and program satisfaction. Program participants represented a range of race/ethnic backgrounds and research experience levels. The cohort included a high rate of female (51%) and Black (35%) participants relative to representation of these groups in orthopaedic surgery. Postprogram surveys indicated that all participants improved their research skills, orthopaedic interest, and mentorship/networking skills. Most students (89%) stated that they were adequately matched to their faculty mentor. Most students (79%) indicated that they contributed to either manuscript or conference abstract as coauthors. The study findings suggest improved research skills, interest, and confidence to pursue orthopaedic residency and mentorship/networks in the field. Our long-term vision is to improve the accessibility and quality of mentorship for underrepresented students to foster an equitable pathway into the field of orthopaedic surgery.

Determining the Factors Accounting for Reaction Selectivity: A Relative Energy Gradient - Interacting Quantum Atoms and Natural Bonding Orbitals Study.

Identifying the main physicochemical properties accounting for the course of a reaction is of utmost importance to rationalize chemical syntheses. To this aim, the relative energy gradient (REG) method is an appealing approach because it is an unbiased and automatic process to extract the most relevant pieces of energy information. Initially formulated within the interacting quantum atoms (IQA) framework for a single reaction, here we extend the REG method to natural bond orbitals (NBO) analysis and to the case of two competitive processes. This development enables the determination of the driving forces of any chemical selectivity. We illustrate the extended REG method on the case study of ring opening in cyclobutenes, which is an important instance of the so-called torquoselectivity.

Photoluminescence Enhancement of 0D Organic-Inorganic Metal Halides via Aggregation-Induced Emission and Halide Substitution.

0D organic-inorganic metal halides (OIMHs) provide unprecedented versatility in structures and photoluminescence properties. Here, a series of bluish-white emissive 0D OIMHs, (TPE-TPP)2Sb2BrxCl8-x (x = 1.16 to 8), are prepared by assembling the 1-triphenylphosphonium-4-(1,2,2-triphenylethenyl)benzene cation (TPE-TPP)+ with antimony halides anions. Based on experimental characterizations and theoretical calculations, the emission of the 0D OIMHs are attributed to the fluorescence of the organic cations with aggregation-induced emission (AIE) properties. The 0D structure minimized the molecular motion and intermolecular interactions between (TPE-TPP)+ cations, effectively suppressing the non-radiative recombination processes. Consequently, the photoluminescence quantum efficiency (PLQE) of (TPE-TPP)2Sb2Br1.16Cl6.84 is significantly enhanced to 55.4% as compared to the organic salt (TPE-TPP)Br (20.5%). The PLQE of (TPE-TPP)2Sb2BrxCl8-x can also be readily manipulated by halide substitution, due to the competitive processes between non-radiative recombination on the inorganic moiety and the energy transfer from inorganic to organic. In addition, electrically driven light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are fabricated based on (TPE-TPP)2Sb2Br1.16Cl6.84 emitter, which exhibited bluish-white emission with a maximum external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 1.1% and luminance of 335cdm-2. This is the first report of electrically driven LED based on 0D OIMH with bluish-white emission.

A two-stage game-theoretical framework for Pricing & Management problem of shared mobility in a competitive market

ABSTRACT With the global proliferation of shared mobility systems, the vehicle-sharing market has witnessed an influx of companies and investors, thereby intensifying competition and potentially leading to suboptimal decision-making. Consequently, there is a pressing need for a modelling framework that specifically addresses operational and strategic-level policy design for multiple vehicle-sharing companies in a competitive market. In this study, we develop a two-stage game-theoretical framework to simulate the competitive process between multiple vehicle-sharing companies, facilitating their business decisions regarding pricing and management (P&M) problem, where management mainly include service area design, vehicle deployment, redirecting, and rebalancing. In the first stage of the framework, two companies operating under the same shared mobility service form a strategic alliance to compete against another vehicle-sharing service. Subsequently, in the second stage, these two companies engage in competition to maximise their individual profits. Based on the factors such as generalised travel cost, average acceptance level and vehicle availability, the competition process of each stage is formulated as a generalised Nash equilibrium problem. A linearisation method is employed for solving the equilibrium solution. Finally, we apply our proposed models to various vehicle-sharing systems and application scenarios to demonstrate their applicability. The numerical results illustrate that our model assists companies in making rational management decisions amidst intense competition while also revealing market competition landscape of vehicle-sharing systems based on different travel distances in the shared mobility market.

Intimate relationships regulate female brain activity in a competitive context: evidence from EEG and functional connectivity analysis.

Competition is common in life, and intimate relationships are essential. Understanding how intimate relationships impact an individual's competitive process is crucial. This study explored the impact of competitor gender on female competition using electroencephalography analysis. The results revealed that females exhibited a smaller median of the absolute value of reaction time difference (DRT) between their partners and their competitors when their partners were absent compared to when their partners were present. Additionally, females showed greater average amplitudes of N2 posterior contralateral component (N2pc) and Late Positive Potential (LPP), increased activation of the alpha frequency band, and enhanced theta frequency band functional connectivity between the central parietal lobe and occipital lobe. Furthermore, when competing with individuals of the same gender as opposed to individuals of the opposite gender, females exhibited greater average amplitudes of percentage of wins and N2pc. A significant negative correlation was noted between the DRT and the average wave amplitudes of N2pc and LPP. These findings suggest that females are more engaged in competitive tasks when partners are not present and have improved decision-making when competing with same-gender individuals. This study provides evidence for the influence of lovers on female competition, helping females adapt to social competition and promoting healthy relationships.

Loss & Damage Youth Grant-Making Council - a climate justice case study

ABSTRACT Climate justice has emerged as a key theme of the global climate crisis. It is widely agreed that significant funding is required to address climate challenges, but despite developed countries committing at the Paris COP meetings to providing US$100 billion annually, pledges and actual commitments have fallen well short of this goal. Moreover, the $100 billion annual commitment itself falls short of the US$6 trillion now estimated to be necessary for responding to the global climate challenge. Recently the discourse about climate justice has increasingly argued that this is a climate finance issue. This raises important questions about who will pay for mitigation and adaptation efforts undertaken by the countries that need it most – those at the forefront of the adverse impacts of climate change. Climate philanthropy offers an innovative way around this bottleneck, and is a promising vehicle of climate finance as it offers a range of financial and non-financial benefits. This article examines a case study of the Loss and Damage Youth Grant-making Council (LDYGC), a climate philanthropy initiative focused on engaging youth in responding to the climate crisis by providing grants through a competitive process.

Mitigate cross-market competition caused by the risk of uncertainty and improve firm performance through business intelligence

In the face of various risks and uncertainties including political instability, technological advancements, and natural disasters, businesses involved in cross-market activities are encountering a more competitive environment. This study investigates the relationship between competitive intensity, business intelligence, internal process efficiency, and the performance of small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises in China. By incorporating the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework and Dynamic Capabilities Theory, a research model is developed to demonstrate that competitive intensity improves firms’ performance through the utilization of business intelligence capabilities and internal process efficiency. Through the use of a structural equation model, data collected from 15 industrial parks in Henan province, China, involving 429 participants, was analyzed. The findings show a positive correlation between competitive intensity and business intelligence sensing capability (both internal and external). The impact of business intelligence sensing capability on the performance of small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises is shown to be mediated through internal process efficiency. Our study reveals the mediating roles of business intelligence capability and internal process efficiency in improving organizational performance among Chinese small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises. This research not only fills gaps in business intelligence research from a management perspective but also contributes to the literature on the interactions among competitive intensity, business intelligence, internal processes, and organizational performance. It also sheds light on the relationship between competitive intensity and organizational performance, offering insights for companies involved in cross-market activities. By highlighting the importance of business intelligence capabilities in adapting to environmental influences, this study offers practical guidance for enterprise digital transformation efforts.

Competitive adsorption behavior of As(V) and Sb(V) on Hematite: Facet and pH dependent coordination affinity and role of outer-sphere complexes

The environmental mobility and fate of arsenic (As) and antimony (Sb) are influenced by ubiquitous iron minerals, but little is known about whether their co-adsorption behavior is affected by the exposed facets. Herein, we used cubic and rod-shaped hematite nanocrystals (HNC and HNR) to investigate the effect of exposed facets on competitive adsorption behaviors. TEM analysis indicated that the primary exposed facets of HNC and HNR were {110} and {012}, separately. Calculations supported the predictions of our model, revealing that the competition in acidic and alkaline environments was mainly influenced by the affinity and bond stability of facet-related adsorption configurations. However, the competition in neutral conditions was jointly influenced by facet-related coordination and adsorption behavior, due to the dependence of Sb(V) on protonation sites. On HNR (pH = 3), the adsorption of Sb(V) (50.6 %) was approximately twice that of As(V) (27.8 %) for its significant advantage in bidentate coordination on the {110} facet, whereas on HNC, As(V) (65.9 %) and Sb(V) (69.3 %) exhibited similar competitiveness. Notably, As(V) and Sb(V) tend to be adsorbed through outer-sphere coordination under alkaline conditions. On the {012} facet, As(V) and Sb(V) exhibited similar competitiveness for outer-sphere sites, whereas on the {110} facet, As(V) outer-sphere coordination showed stronger affinity, giving it an edge in competing on HNR. Overall, this study elucidated the critical role of varying exposed facets in the competitive adsorption process and proposed novel strategies for the selective removal of coexisting As(V) and Sb(V) through tailored fixed-facet iron oxides.