Convenient Concept Research Articles

Digital sovereignty: conceptual challenges and constitutional implications

This article examines how national states and integrative unions such as the European Union employ the concept of digital sovereignty in their policy discourse. It begins with the premise that contemporary digital policy of these entities is intricately linked to the idea of digital sovereignty. The study analyzes the factors that have led national states and the European Union to enter a new phase of modern constitutionalism - digital constitutionalism. Modern European constitutionalism has accumulated experience in various social spheres, as evidenced by developments such as economic constitutionalism. In the digital era, it raises and attempts to answer questions about how digital constitutionalism can overcome the limitations of traditional constitutional thinking, particularly its focus on state-legal and political phenomena. The article explores the extent to which the generalization of purely state constitutional principles can advance in the digital age. The paper emphasizes that digital constitutionalism is a convenient concept for explaining the phenomenon of constitutional resistance to challenges created by digital technologies. It notes that existing foreign, and especially Ukrainian, legal scholarship has not yet formed a clear and unified vision of this concept. This article provides a literature review on digital constitutionalism and offers an analysis of the theoretical frameworks surrounding the concept. It posits that digital constitutionalism is an ideology that adapts the values of modern constitutionalism to the demands of the digital age. Currently, digital constitutionalism does not provide normative answers to the challenges of digital technologies, but rather presents a set of principles and values that inform and guide them. The article argues that Internet governance is evolving towards fragmentation, polarization, and hybridization, which contribute to the development of an architecture of freedom and power in the digital environment. The study aims to identify constitutionally significant threats associated with digitalization and allows for the development of constitutional counterstrategies.

Rare anatomical variants encountered during laparoscopic cholecystectomy in low resource conditions and the convenient concept of the safe zone of dissection: a prospective observational study at a single center.

The severity of surrounding adhesions, anomalous anatomy, and technical issues are the main factors that complicate cholecystectomy. This study focused on determining the types and frequency of laparoscopic anatomical variations found during laparoscopic cholecystectomy in our limited-resources condition and on defining the safe zone of dissection. This prospective study was conducted at a single center in Aden, Yemen from 2012 to 2019. A total of 375 patients, comprising 355 females (94.7%) and 20 males (5.3%), presented with symptomatic gallbladders and underwent standard four-port laparoscopic cholecystectomy. The regional laparoscopicvariationswere evaluated and recorded. Of the 375 patients, 26 (6.9%) had laparoscopic anatomical variations, of whom 19 (73.1%) had vascular variations and seven (26.9%) had ductal variations. The anatomical variations included the following: double cystic artery of separated origin, seven cases (26.9%); Moynihan's hump, six (23.1%); double cystic artery of single origin, four (15.4%); thin long cystic duct, four (15.4%); subvesical duct, three (11.5%); and cystic artery hocking the cystic duct, two (7.7%). Biliary anatomical variations can be expected in any dissected zone. Most of the detected variants were associated with the cystic artery. An overlooked accessory cysto-biliary communication can cause complicated biliary leakage. A surgeon's skills and knowledge of laparoscopic anatomical variants are essential for performing a safe laparoscopic cholecystectomy.

Γ-CONVERGENCE OF DOUBLE SEQUENCES OF FUNCTIONS, AND MINIMIZERS

In the present paper, we introduce the concept of Γ-convergence of a double sequence of functions defined from a metric space into real numbers. This convergence is useful as it is a convenient concept of convergence for approximating minimization problems in the field of mathematical optimization. First, we compare this convergence with pointwise and uniform convergence and obtain some properties of Γ-convergence. Later we deal with the problem of minimization. We prove that, under some additional assumptions, the Γ-convergence of a double sequence (f_{kl}) to a function f implies the convergence of the minimum values of f_{kl} to the minimum value of f. Moreover, we prove that each limit point of the double sequence of the minimizers of f_{kl} is a minimizer of f.

Tax incentives during the Covid-19 pandemic: An Islamic economics perspective

IntroductionThe economic impact of Covid-19 virus is also felt by the state revenue sector due to tax incentives.ObjectivesThis study aims to analyze the tax incentive policies implemented by the government during the Covid-19 pandemic in terms of objectives, impacts, and the concept of convenience from an Islamic economics perspective. MethodThis study uses a normative-juridical approach by examining tax incentive policies in the context of Islamic economic theory from philosophical and juridical perspectives.ResultsFrom an Islamic economic perspective, the existence of tax incentives seen from the objective of the results and benefits is appropriate because it creates maslahah in the midst of an emergency or critical situation. In addition, the convenience provided by the government in tax incentives if seen from Islamic law is rukshah, or convenience and understanding for citizens due to certain conditions, namely the Covid-19 pandemic. ImplicationsThis study contributes to the development of theoretical research in the field of macroeconomic policy from an Islamic perspective. This study can also be used as a reference by the government to provide tax incentives in times of similar crises.Originality/NoveltyThis study is unique in that it examines the problem of tax incentives from an Islamic perspective. As a country with the world's largest Muslim population, this study will enrich Islamic macroeconomic studies for policymaking in Indonesia.

Lunar dust removal and material degradation from liquid nitrogen sprays

Lunar regolith degrades human health and equipment making mitigation paramount for lunar missions. Cryogenic liquid sprays are a recently developed, simple, and convenient concept for dust mitigation in a lunar environment. However, removal efficacy and material degradation under the extreme cryogenic vacuum environment are unknown. Traditional space suit dust mitigation technologies used on the Apollo missions, such as brushing and vacuuming, introduced suit fabric abrasion which must be addressed for all dust mitigation methods considered for lunar implementation. This publication reports the efficacy of dust removal in a simulated airlock vacuum environment and the associated impact of repeated dusting-washing cycles on spacesuit materials. Specimens were impinged with measured liquid nitrogen sprays at different spray angles within a vacuum chamber. Mean mass removal of 98.4% was achieved in a vacuum environment at optimal conditions, correlating to 95.9% removal of particles below 10 μm. To investigate material degradation, a total of 26 samples were cycled a cumulative 233 times through cryogen spray washings under ambient conditions. A degradation scale was created to classify optical microscopy observations. Degradation results indicate minimal spacesuit material abrasion from liquid nitrogen removal. Results additionally show an average of 2.66% increased removal with each subsequent washing cycle for fabric washed twice, possibly due to clogging and occupancy of specific sites. The conclusion is that liquid nitrogen sprays cause relatively less damage than conventional dust mitigation techniques, even under the extremes of cryogenic temperatures and vacuum.

Make or Buy Choices: Strategic, Profitability and Financial Aspects

Make-or-buy choices are often analysed only from an income point of view, i.e. comparing the costs of the production process implemented within the company with the costs of the service acquired outside the company from third-party economies. This attitude can lead to severe problems in the decision-making process. In choosing the best option, point make or buy alternatives must be implemented primarily based on the strategic impact of the chance to be executed or from comparing the strategic implications of the two options. The strategic aspect of make-or-buy choices is an essential element to be considered since the lack of this type of analysis can lead to choices that are perhaps the most profitable. However, these choices have severe consequences at the level of the company's overall strategy, which is why top management must implement make-or-buy decisions, not the heads of operational departments. Alongside the strategic and profitability aspects, it must also implement make-or-buy choices by considering the financial impacts of the two options. The static and dynamic financial aspects analysed through ratios and flows, respectively, represent an essential element of analysis for the decision to fall on the most convenient option for the cartel, where the concept of convenience is understood in a broad sense and, therefore, also financial. The analysis of the strategic, profitability and financial aspects, thus, appears to be fundamental to analysing the make or buy choices from every point of view. The decision can fall on the most advantageous option for the enterprise where the concept of convenience contains elements of a strategic, profitability and financial nature within it.

Evaluasi Terminal Tipe A - Willy Ananias Gara (W.A. Gara) Kota Palangkaraya

The study aims to find factors that generated the ineffective utilization of W.A Gara bus station as the only type A bus station in Palangka Raya and find the strategies for more effective utilization. The study was conducted by using the quantitative-qualitative analysis technique. Primary data was obtained by distributing the questionnaires to the service users who would conduct trips using the bus. The secondary data was obtained from related institutions to support data that facilitated analyzing the problems. The study found that several factors generated ineffective utilization of the bus station, namely location factor, accessibility factor, and security and convenience factor. The strategies proposed in this research to make more effective utilization of the bus station were: first, creating an attraction which expected to be able to attract the passengers to enter the bus station; second, establishing system on the accessibility of the bus station; third, improving service quality to facilitate and attract the passengers to get on and off the bus in the bus station; forth, designing the more convenient concept of the bus station to attract people to the bus station and implementing control toward the bus agencies so that the process of passengers’ get on and off the bus could occur in the bus station; fifth, improving security monitoring in the bus station

Nanogenerator-Based Wireless Intelligent Motion Correction System for Storing Mechanical Energy of Human Motion

As it is urgently needed to address the energy consumption and health care problems caused by population growth, the field of sustainable energy collection and storage equipment as well as intelligent health care for monitoring human motion behavior has received wide attention and achieved rapid development. However, the portable intelligent systems that integrate them have not been widely discussed. In this work, we propose a design of a nanogenerator-based wireless intelligent motion correction system, combining triboelectric nanogenerator technology with wireless intelligent host computer signal processing and visualization systems. Under the condition of no external power supply, a noninvasive triboelectric nanogenerator (FL-TENG) sensor integrated system stores the mechanical energy due to human movement behavior and drives wireless micro-electronic devices to realize the human–computer interaction application of the intelligent system. In the conducted test, the reported instantaneous output of an ordinary clap action was around 241V. For a variety of physical exercise types being monitored, it can accurately determine human movement behavior and perform error correction and scoring for movement techniques. Additionally, using hydrogel as an electrode improves the service life and stability of the device. Therefore, this flexible and convenient design concept is beneficial to the development and utilization of sustainable energy and sports activities. In addition, it extends the application prospects of FL-TENG in self-powered sensing systems.

Fermionic quantum field theories as probabilistic cellular automata

A class of fermionic quantum field theories with interactions is shown to be equivalent to probabilistic cellular automata, namely cellular automata with a probability distribution for the initial states. Probabilistic cellular automata on a one-dimensional lattice are equivalent to two-dimensional quantum field theories for fermions. They can be viewed as generalized Ising models on a square lattice and therefore as classical statistical systems. As quantum field theories they are quantum systems. Thus quantum mechanics emerges from classical statistics. As an explicit example for an interacting fermionic quantum field theory we describe a type of discretized Thirring model as a cellular automaton. The updating rule of the automaton is encoded in the step evolution operator that can be expressed in terms of fermionic annihilation and creation operators. The complex structure of quantum mechanics is associated to particle-hole transformations. The naive continuum limit exhibits Lorentz symmetry. We exploit the equivalence to quantum field theory in order to show how quantum concepts as wave functions, density matrix, noncommuting operators for observables and similarity transformations are convenient and useful concepts for the description of probabilistic cellular automata.

Reconceptualizing urban heat island: Beyond the urban-rural dichotomy

• Technical and practical inadequacy of the UHI concept critically reviewed. • Proposed a novel system-based paradigm for re-conceptualized UHI studies. • Implications to urban planning and policy making discussed. Past decades have seen drastically increasing research effort and progress on the study of the phenomenon of urban heat island (UHI). Despite its simplicity, this convenient concept has promoted significant advances in scientific research and policy making processes in the urban environmental community. Nevertheless, the oversimplification and inadequacy of the urban-rural dichotomy, inherited in the UHI concept, is increasingly manifest today in the continuously urbanized world. In this study, we conduct a holistic and in-depth survey of the inadequacy of the urban-rural dichotomy intrinsic to the definition of UHI, from theoretical, technical, and practical perspectives. In addition, in the light of recent research advances, we urge to radically reconceptualize UHI by proposing a novel paradigm by treating the total urban environment as a complex dynamic system. The new framework broadens the frontier of conventional urban environmental study by utilizing advanced techniques of complex systems and data sciences, including complex network theory, machine learning techniques, causal inference, etc. The reconceptualization of UHI is also expected to foster decision making and urban planning, and to avoid the one-sidedness of the singular and often too exclusive aim of heat mitigation.

Roadside Estimation of a Vehicle’s Center of Gravity Height Based on an Improved Single-Stage Detection Algorithm and Regression Prediction Technology

In this paper, a vehicle center of gravity (CG) height estimation method based on improved You Only Look Once algorithm and AdaBoost regression is proposed by relying on roadside sensors. The CG height of a vehicle plays an important role in the performance evaluation indexes of vehicle handling, ride comfort, and safety. Therefore, the accurate measurement of the CG height is helpful for improving vehicle control and ensuring driving safety. Different from traditional vehicle modeling, in this study, a data-driven roadside estimation method based on machine vision is utilized for the estimation of the vehicle CG height, thereby providing an economic and convenient concept. In terms of vehicle type identification, the improved YOLO algorithm is characterized by flexibility and speed while ensuring high accuracy. This ensures that it can be quickly deployed on roadside equipment and meet real-time requirements. Moreover, through the correlation analysis, parameters including the vehicle’s front track width, rear track width, roof height, and weight, which can be collected by roadside sensors, are selected as input parameters for the regression. An ensemble learning model based on AdaBoost regression realizes the final estimation of the CG height. The test results obtained on the NHTSA experimental data show that the average accuracy of vehicle type identification reaches 97.59% and the regression estimation accuracy of the vehicle CG height reaches 94.64%.

A novel method for calculating the dynamic force coefficients of Gas Foil Bearings and its application in the rotordynamic analysis

Bearing force coefficients are a fundamental and convenient concept in the dynamic analysis of a bearing–rotor system. However, for a rotor system supported by gas foil bearings (GFBs), recent studies have shown that the onset speed of instability (OSI) predicted using the force coefficients model is inconsistent with that obtained using nonlinear time-domain analysis. To solve this problem, this study proposed a novel method for calculating the dynamic force coefficients of GFBs. The correctness and effectiveness of the proposed method were confirmed by examining the calculation of the bearing force coefficients, the stability prediction and the calculation of unbalance responses. For a classical symmetric GFB–rotor system, application of the proposed calculation method demonstrated that the OSI predicted by the force coefficients model can be in complete agreement with the OSI predicted by the fully coupled model for all compliance levels. This indicates that the force coefficient method has the potential to make accurate prediction for the stability characteristics of GFB–rotor systems. Furthermore, the proposed method is derived based on the general dynamic equation for linear structures; hence it is able to adopt a complex foil structure model. The one-dimensional finite element foil model that considers detachments of the top foil from the bump foil was used to show the ability of the proposed method to use a complex foil structure model.

Bioclimatic approach of passive cooling techniques for the design of buildings in southern Algeria

The bioclimatic approach looks into the opportunities for building conception under the local climatic conditions. The first bioclimatic chart has been developed by Olgyay which combines temperature with relative humidity to characterize the comfort zone. It is founded on outside climate conditions to identify attenuation measures such as solar radiation, wind speed, or shading to reach comfortable inside conditions. Givoni created also a bioclimatic chart founded on inside conditions using the physical and thermal properties of air. Bioclimatic approach strategies contribute to decreasing the building energy loads and increasing thermal comfort for its residents over the year. The principal aim of this research is to evaluate a bioclimatic approach to passive cooling for building design in Algeria's South using Givoni's Bioclimatic chart and Olgyay's Bioclimatic chart. Climate data of various locations (Ouargla, Ghardaia, and El Oued) within this area were collected and analyzed. Furthermore, an overview of appropriated conception strategies for the hot season for each zone is developed. The results show that the maximum average temperature from June to August at around 43.1°C. After applying passive cooling strategies, the temperature indoor can be decreased from about 26.1 to 31.4°C, which can be described as being in the comfort zone for the three studied locations. Finally, these findings can contribute to understanding the thermal behavior of residential buildings and offer guidelines to develop a convenient concept of what the building composition should look like in arid and hot climates.

The meaning of convenience in smart home imaginaries: tech industry insights

<div class="page" title="Page 1"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"> Smart home technology (SHT) is being promoted for the enhancement of occupants’ convenience, as well as more efficient and sustainable energy consumption. However, recent research indicates that convenience often takes precedence over energy reduction, threatening to affect inhabitants’ everyday practices in a non-sustainable way. In order to understand the social and environmental consequences of SHT, the meaning of convenience is investigated. How is the concept of convenience developed in concert with technological development? Presenting SHT imaginaries from the industry, the paper builds on qualitative interviews with 11 SHT professionals. By exploring the practices, roles, and relations at play in SHT development, it is demonstrated how the vision to enhance convenience in everyday life is related to a user imaginary characterized by passivity and disengagement from energy savings. Furthermore, convenience is enabled and enforced through the notion of interoperability. Interoperability refers to not only technologies ‘speaking together’ but also a strong interdependency between professional actors. By exploring the practices at play in SHT development, the meaning of convenience is revealed to be an outcome of this interdependency as well as the collectively shaped ideas, and technological standards embedded in the industry. <strong><br /></strong> <strong>Policy relevance</strong> SHT is shaping our domestic futures, influencing material environments as well as social life and energy consumption. Currently, SHT is promoted and supported widely in policy. For instance, the European Commission stresses automation as a means to ensure the more efficient operation of buildings, generating cost and energy savings. However, a focus on convenience risks counteracting sustainability considerations. This study shows how convenience can take precedence across various branches of SHT development, with a consequence of creating passive users who are disengaged from sustainability issues. When policymakers promote the adoption of SHTs and automation of the built environment, a more critical stance is needed toward convenience in order to avoid user passivity and masked energy consumption. Policy instruments, such as the smart readiness indicator (SRI), should not only include calculations of what is technically possible in terms of automation but also examine the outcomes, practices, and behavior that SHT promotes. </div></div></div>

The work of class: Cash transfers and community development in Tanzania

This article uses the concept of convenience as an analytical prompt to investigate how ideas about work organize a cash‐based social assistance program financed through foreign aid. Productive Social Safety Nets (PSSN) is a nationwide program providing small regular payments to very poor households in Tanzania. Cash transfers as components of social assistance not predicated on working confront assumptions many Tanzanians share about the importance of work as foundational to self‐reliance as the bedrock of personal and national development. The program uses existing architectures of community development to creatively combine Tanzanian values around poor people's responsibility for their own development with World Bank conceptualizations of social assistance as a productive investment. Ethnographic research at the interface between program implementors and beneficiaries provides insights into the attitudes many Tanzanians hold about development and their place in it and sheds light on the ambivalent feelings of insecure middle classes about changing forms of state‐managed social assistance. Implementation involves an intricate orchestration of prescriptive ideals about labor, entitlement, and value organized around labor‐intensive bureaucratic procedures, public works, and community sensitization sessions. Labor making and making visible different kinds of work characterize program implementation. Prevailing attitudes toward social assistance, and the class relations through which they are realized, are perpetuated through ostensibly novel programs.

Dried Blood Spot Self-Sampling with Automated Capillary Electrophoresis Processing for Clinical Analysis.

A simple and convenient concept of blood sampling followed by a fully automated analysis is presented. A disposable sampling kit is used for accurate self-sampling of capillary blood from a finger prick. A high-throughput blood sampling is thus enabled, which is essential in many clinical assays and considerably improves life quality and comfort of involved subjects. The collected blood samples are mailed to a laboratory for a fully automated dried blood spot (DBS) processing and analysis, which are performed with a commercial capillary electrophoresis instrument. Quantitative results are obtained within 20 min from the DBS delivery to the laboratory. The presented concept is exemplified by the determination of warfarin blood concentrations and demonstrates excellent analytical performance. Moreover, this concept is generally applicable to a wide range of endogenous and exogenous blood compounds and represents a novel and attractive analytical tool for personalized health monitoring.

Dried Blood Spot Self‐Sampling with Automated Capillary Electrophoresis Processing for Clinical Analysis

AbstractA simple and convenient concept of blood sampling followed by a fully automated analysis is presented. A disposable sampling kit is used for accurate self‐sampling of capillary blood from a finger prick. A high‐throughput blood sampling is thus enabled, which is essential in many clinical assays and considerably improves life quality and comfort of involved subjects. The collected blood samples are mailed to a laboratory for a fully automated dried blood spot (DBS) processing and analysis, which are performed with a commercial capillary electrophoresis instrument. Quantitative results are obtained within 20 min from the DBS delivery to the laboratory. The presented concept is exemplified by the determination of warfarin blood concentrations and demonstrates excellent analytical performance. Moreover, this concept is generally applicable to a wide range of endogenous and exogenous blood compounds and represents a novel and attractive analytical tool for personalized health monitoring.

Oil import portfolio risk and spillover volatility

The concept of energy security has been recently extended to encompass not only the concept of physical supply availability or concerns about the lack of, but also new aspects related to price stability and affordability. Energy security is viewed, in a financial perspective, as a concept of economic convenience of energy supplies, available from a portfolio of partner countries.This paper analyzes the oil imports structure of four major Asian energy importers: China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. We measure the total and bilateral volatility spillovers of the portfolio risk associated with the composition of the main oil suppliers, using forecast-error variance decompositions derived from a vector autoregressive model. Results show that the composition of oil import composition determines varying risk levels for given oil import growth rates and average import prices and before and after the Financial Crisis of 2008. We simulate two shocks: Covid-19 Scenario and Increased imports from KSA, showing that risk increases within a 3–15% range. As expected, spillover effects are increasing and exhibit a consistent reallocation effects, confirming that a deep shock can modify the quality composition of the variance and not only its level.

Compound Poisson approximation for regularly varying fields with application to sequence alignment

The article determines the asymptotic shape of the extremal clusters in stationary regularly varying random fields. To deduce this result, we present a general framework for the Poisson approximation of point processes on Polish spaces which appears to be of independent interest. We further introduce a novel and convenient concept of anchoring of the extremal clusters for regularly varying sequences and fields. Together with the Poissonian approximation theory, this allows for a concise description of the limiting behavior of random fields in this setting. We apply this theory to shed entirely new light on the classical problem of evaluating local alignments of biological sequences.

Ultra-low pressure cellulose-based nanofiltration membrane fabricated on layer-by-layer assembly for efficient sodium chloride removal

Cellulose is a renewable, biodegradable, biocompatible, and sustainable material. A bamboo cellulose-based nanofiltration membrane (LBL-NF-CS/BCM) was prepared with a combination of layer-by-layer assembly and spraying methods. The chemical structure, morphology, and surface charge of the resultant LBL-NF-CS/BCM composite membranes were characterized based on Thermo Gravimetric Analysis (TGA), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), and X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy Scanning (XPS). The nanofiltration performance of the LBL-NF-CS/BCM composite membranes was evaluated using 500 ppm NaCl solutions under 0.3 MPa pressure. It was found that the LBL-NF-CS/BCM composite membranes had a rejection rate of about 36.11 % against a 500 ppm NaCl solution under the conditions tested, and membrane flux of about 12.08 L/(m2 h) was reached. The combined layer-by-layer assembly and spraying provides a scalable and convenient process concept for nanofiltration membrane fabrication.