Higher Savings Research Articles

Can social impacts promote residents’ pro-environmental intentions and behaviour: Evidence from large-scale demand response experiment in China

Energy demand-side management is crucial for deep decarbonization. Consumers’ behavioral intentions and real pro-environmental behaviour have been widely discussed separately. However, few studies assessed the intention-behaviour gap and limited empirical evidence has been provided on how to promote the intention-behaviour on residential electricity demand response (DR) project. Here, we identified four intention-behaviour relationship by k-means cluster and analyzed the impacts of normative social influence and peer influence on the intention and behaviour based on large scale incentive-based DR experiment and matching questionnaires data in China. We found that the intention-behaviour gap exists in 77.94% respondents, only 16.09% respondents belong to inclined actors who has both high intention and high electricity savings behaviour. Peer influence and normative social influence can significantly increase intention to participate the DR project and energy-saving behaviour during peak hours, and the impact is larger for respondents with high family endowments and educational level. Specifically, 30.6% of the electricity saving behaviour has been explained directly by the peer influence, while normative social influence electricity saving behaviour through behavioural intention. Besides these, effort expectancy and facilitating conditions also play an important role in promoting the intention and electricity-saving behaviour. Our study further provides feasible solutions to facilitate the residential DR for policymakers.

Environmental and economic impacts of improper materials in the recycling of separated collected food waste through anaerobic digestion and composting

Separately collected food waste (SC-FW) is effectively recycled through industrial anaerobic digestion (AD) and composting. However, the presence of improper materials in SC-FW not only generates technical problems to AD and composting, but also lowers the quality of the outputs of the processes. As a consequence, improper materials found in SC-FW cause not negligible environmental and economic burdens.In this study, the environmental and economic impacts due to the presence of unsuitable materials in the SC-FW, determined through compositional analysis, were estimated through life cycle assessment and environmental life cycle costing approaches. Three different scenarios were analysed for both AD and composting processes: (i) the current situation (CS); (ii) the improved scenario (AS) with an amount of improper materials in SC-FW reduced to 3 % (w/w); (iii) the ideal scenario (IS) with the total absence of foreign materials.Environmental benefits were determined for the AS and IS scenarios in 17 of the 19 analysed impact categories. Considering the GHG emissions, higher savings were measured for AD in AS and IS scenarios (47 % and 79 %, respectively) than in CS scenario. Similarly, savings of −10.4 kg fossil oil eq/tonSC-FW (AS) and − 17.1 kg fossil oil eq/tonSC-FW (IS) for AD could be obtained with respect to the CS scenario. Greater economic benefits were calculated for AD (−76.4 €/tonSC-FW) and composting (−52.2 €/tonSC-FW) in the IS scenario. Savings up to € 2,249,780 and € 3,888,760 could have been obtained in 2022 by reducing to 3 % (w/w) and eliminating, respectively, the amount of improper materials in the SC-FW.The results of the compositional analyses of SC-FW allowed to identify the incorrect behaviours in FW source-sorting activity and to plan interventions to improve the current FW management system. The quantified environmental and economic benefits could further motivate citizens to correctly differentiate FW.

Analysis and Development of A Self-Dimming Module for Road Traffic Signals

Nowadays, we often see more and more of the various types of lights in urban areas, especially in road areas, either regarding the use of traffic lights or streetlights that serve as guides and signals to maintain road safety. Typically, the lamps use LED-based lamps as they can increase the rate of high savings. This LED conceptual light helps reduce energy wastage by using less power and reducing the consumption of heat and is suitable for day-to-day operation. The addition of ordinary LEDs to self-dimming systems based on the intensity of light around is more likely to increase the savings rate and is more environment-friendly. The scope of this research includes analytics data from the use of standard traffic lights and LED signal lights that are self-concept in dimmer systems. This research uses the IoT concept that is applied to the traffic system and uses solar energy which is indeed renewable natural energy and can affect the green earth concept to the traffic control system on the road.

Random and Adversarial Bit Error Robustness: Energy-Efficient and Secure DNN Accelerators.

Deep neural network (DNN) accelerators received considerable attention in recent years due to the potential to save energy compared to mainstream hardware. Low-voltage operation of DNN accelerators allows to further reduce energy consumption, however, causes bit-level failures in the memory storing the quantized weights. Furthermore, DNN accelerators are vulnerable to adversarial attacks on voltage controllers or individual bits. In this paper, we show that a combination of robust fixed-point quantization, weight clipping, as well as random bit error training (RandBET) or adversarial bit error training (AdvBET) improves robustness against random or adversarial bit errors in quantized DNN weights significantly. This leads not only to high energy savings for low-voltage operation as well as low-precision quantization, but also improves security of DNN accelerators. In contrast to related work, our approach generalizes across operating voltages and accelerators and does not require hardware changes. Moreover, we present a novel adversarial bit error attack and are able to obtain robustness against both targeted and untargeted bit-level attacks. Without losing more than 0.8%/2% in test accuracy, we can reduce energy consumption on CIFAR10by 20%/30% for 8/4-bit quantization. Allowing up to 320 adversarial bit errors, we reduce test error from above 90% (chance level) to 26.22%.

Investigating the Relationship between Population Structure and Poverty

Introduction: Poverty reduction is one of the important macroeconomic goals of any country, but achieving this important issue requires examining the factors affecting it. Changing the age structure of the population is one of the effective factors in reducing poverty in countries. Therefore, governments can make the most of their population, given the capacity of countries and providing the necessary conditions, and as a result, achieve high growth and development among countries. The purpose of this study is to investigate and analyze the effect of population age structure on poverty in Iran. Method: The method of this research is analytical-descriptive. First, theoretical topics and experimental studies and research data are collected, and the appropriate analysis model is selected. Then, with the Generalized Method of Momen for Iran since 1975 until 2017, the desired research models have been estimated, and finally, using statistical and econometric inferences, the research results have been studied. Findings: In general, according to the results, it can be concluded that the dependent population of the child and years of schooling have a negative and significant relationship with the dependent variable, the elderly dependent population has a negative and significant relationship with the dependent variable and also the percentage of trade in GDP and Physical capital inventories have a negative relationship with the dependent variable. Discussion: In this study, the years of schooling, the percentage of trade in GDP, as well as capital stock are based on a coefficient that agrees with the theory. The positive effect of the elderly population on poverty reduction indicates the existence of high savings in old age. Paying attention to the growth of highly educated employees as well as employing specialized personnel increases the productivity of the labor force and also creates the possibility of creating new production methods that have significant effects on poverty reduction.

A Comprehensive Review on Wastewater Nitrogen Removal and Its Recovery Processes

Discharging large amounts of domestic and industrial wastewater drastically increases the reactive nitrogen content in aquatic ecosystems, which causes severe ecological stress and biodiversity loss. This paper reviews three common types of denitrification processes, including physical, chemical, and biological processes, and mainly focuses on the membrane technology for nitrogen recovery. The applicable conditions and effects of various treatment methods, as well as the advantages, disadvantages, and influencing factors of membrane technologies, are summarized. Finally, it is proposed that developing effective combinations of different treatment methods and researching new processes with high efficiency, economy, and energy savings, such as microbial fuel cells and anaerobic osmotic membrane bioreactors, are the research and development directions of wastewater treatment processes.

The carbon and production performance of water utilities: Evidence from the English and Welsh water industry

The path towards a sustainable water sector requires the assessment of production and carbon efficiency (eco-efficiency). In this study, we evaluate the production & carbon efficiency (PCE) of water companies under natural disposability and managerial disposability using the Range Adjusted Measure (RAM) non-parametric technique. This approach further allows quantifying the impact of each input on the performance of water companies. The results indicated that the mean PCE under natural disposability was 0.957 whereas the mean PCE under managerial disposability was lower, at the level of 0.783. This suggests that higher savings in carbon emissions could be achieved by improving management such as the adoption of carbon neutral technologies. Additionally, the savings in energy costs and other costs could potentially reach the level of 9.4% and 14.5% on average, respectively. By using bootstrap truncated regression techniques it has evidenced that the source of raw water and advanced water treatment impacted PCE of water companies.

Applying Job Shop Scheduling to SMEs Manufacturing Platform to Revitalize B2B Relationship

A small and medium enterprises (SMEs) manufacturing platform aims to perform as a significant revenue to SMEs and vendors by providing scheduling and monitoring capabilities. The optimal job shop scheduling is generated by utilizing the scheduling system of the platform, and a minimum production time, i.e., makespan decides whether the scheduling is optimal or not. This scheduling result allows manufacturers to achieve high productivity, energy savings, and customer satisfaction. Manufacturing in Industry 4.0 requires dynamic, uncertain, complex production environments, and customer-centered services. This paper proposes a novel method for solving the difficulties of the SMEs manufacturing by applying and implementing the job shop scheduling system on a SMEs manufacturing platform. The primary purpose of the SMEs manufacturing platform is to improve the B2B relationship between manufacturing companies and vendors. The platform also serves qualified and satisfactory production opportunities for buyers and producers by meeting two key factors: early delivery date and fulfillment of processing as many orders as possible. The genetic algorithm (GA)-based scheduling method results indicated that the proposed platform enables SME manufacturers to obtain optimized schedules by solving the job shop scheduling problem (JSSP) by comparing with the real-world data from a textile weaving factory in South Korea. The proposed platform will provide producers with an optimal production schedule, introduce new producers to buyers, and eventually foster relationships and mutual economic interests.

Performance Evaluation of Sand Screening Machine: Effect of Sieve Size and Moisture Content

In construction industry, sand is a major raw material besides water, cement, gravel and steel. The quality of sand is vital in development of firm structures in construction. Thus, for construction industry to remain competitive, it is critical to develop efficient sand screening technologies that produce high quality sand while reducing labour cost. Therefore, the main objective of this research paper was to assess sand sieving technologies used in construction industry in Kenya and to design and evaluate performance operation of the sand screening machine that would help improve the efficiency and quality of sand while lowering the overall construction cost. The specific objectives were to design sand screening machine and to investigate the effect of moisture and sieve sizes on screening time. Experiments were conducted on semi-automatic machine driven by motor to determine fine sand produced at different moisture levels and time consumed. The machine designed consist a motor, sieve, shaft, steel hollow tubes, flat steel bars, sheet metal plates, hinges, eccentric sheaves, and angle bars. The study found that screening raw sand of 10 kg using a designed semi-automatic machine with a sieve of 3mm x 3mm and densities 1442 kg/m3, 1602 kg/m3, 1682 kg/m3, 1922 kg/m3 and 2082 kg/m3 were found to produce 8.1kg, 6.8kg, 6.1kg, 4.1kg and 2.8kg respectively with sieving time of 24s, 26s, 27s, 30s and 32s respectively. Designed semi-automatic sand sieving machine displayed a labour reduction cost of 66% leading to savings of Ksh. 39,600 per month. In addition, the output of the machine screening dry sand (1442 kg/m3) 8 hours per day was found to be 9,720 kg. In conclusion, low density sand and optimal sieve size results to high efficiency and significant labour cost savings. The study recommends the use of sand with low density (dry) and adoption of semi-automatic screening machine technologies in construction industry in order to attain Kenya’s affordable housing programme

Estimating the Impact of New Health Price Transparency Policies.

This analysis investigates and scores the impact of new health price transparency rules. Using a set of novel data sources, we estimate substantial savings are possible following the implementation of the insurer price transparency rule. Specifically, we estimate annual savings to consumers, employers, and insurers by 2025, assuming a robust set of tools to allow consumers to purchase medical services. We matched claims with 70 HHS defined shoppable services by CPT and DRG codes and replaced them with an estimated median commercial allowed payment multiplied by a reduced cost of 40% based on estimates found from literature for the difference in cost between negotiated and cash payment for medical services. We consider 40% to be an upper bound estimate of the potential savings based on existing literature. Several databases are used to estimate the potential benefits of insurer price transparency. Two different all-payer claim databases were used, representing the entire insured population in the US. For this analysis, only the private insurer commercial population was examined, comprised of over 200 million covered lives as of 2021. The estimated impact of price transparency will vary significantly by region and income level. The national upper bound estimate is $80.7 billion. The national lower bound estimate is $17.6 billion. For the upper bound, the region with the most significant impact in the US will be the Midwest, with $20 billion in potential savings and an 8% reduction in medical expenditure. The region with the lowest impact will be the South, with only a 5.8% reduction. Concerning income, those at lower levels of income will have the most significant impact with a -7.4% (<100% Federal Poverty Level) to -7.5% (100%-137% Federal Poverty Level) impact. Overall, the total impact could be a 6.9% reduction for the whole privately insured population in the United States. In summary, a unique set of national data resources were used to estimate the cost savings impact medical price transparency. This analysis suggests price transparency for shoppable services may yields significant savings between $17.6 to $80.7 billion by 2025. Consumers may have strong incentives to shop with the rise in the use of high deductibles, health plans, and health savings accounts. How these potential saving are to be shared by consumers, employers and health plans has yet to be determined.

Industrial Energy Efficiency Technologies and Management Applications in Turkey

Efforts to ensure sustainability in energy, reduce foreign dependency and combat climate change require efficient use of energy and energy resources in Turkey as well as in the rest of the world. Implementing environmentally friendly policies and methods in energy production/consumption and creating resource alternatives, and increasing efficiency by avoiding waste has been a policy that has been emphasized in Turkey. Energy efficient technologies in the industry is to use energy with high efficiency and savings without sacrificing production quality. The application of benchmarking methodologies to determine the efficiency of the industrial plant in terms of energy consumption and to compare it with similar enterprises in the same industry will provide a solid basis for the steps to be taken according to the current situation of a particular industrial plant. Therefore, for such a comparative analysis a set of criteria should be determined and applied. For this purpose, there are two main types of criteria that can be used by grouping them as general and sector-specific criteria. In this study, considering both criteria, energy efficiency technologies and management practices that can be applied for different sectors in Turkey have been compiled. Studies conducted in the literature within the scope of good practices in energy efficiency and management for the Textile, Iron-Steel, Cement and Glass sectors were examined, and policy and strategy proposals for the dissemination of these studies to the locomotive sectors in Turkey were discussed.

China’s Economic Growth, Global Economic Crisis and China’s Policy Responses (The Quaid-i-Azam Lecture)

As a result of opening and reform, China has maintained an annual average growth rate of 9.8 percent for nearly three decades. China’s growth is based on high savings and high investment. Its export promotion policy has also played a very important role in promoting economic growth. However, as a result of China’s growth pattern characterised by investmentdriven and export promotion, the Chinese economy also has been suffering from serious structural imbalances. Its high and ever-rising investment rate has created overheat and overcapacity in tandem. Its high dependency on external market makes its economy vulnerable to external shocks. The global financial crisis has hit the economy seriously and exposed the structural weakness of the economy. The dramatic fall of external demand led to dramatic slowdown of the economy. The Chinese government responded to the slowdown of the economy swiftly and forcefully. A four trillion Renmibi stimulus package and expansionary monetary policy have successfully stabilised the economy. However, the stimulate policy has worsened structural problems. China’s structure problems include high external dependency, high investment rate, deterioration of environment, widening income gap between different social group and between rural and urban areas, insufficiency in the provision of social goods and so on. Due to its strong fiscal position, there should be no problem with China to achieve a growth rate of 8 percent. At the same time, the Chinese government should be able to tackle its structural problems successfully so as to ensure the sustainability of China’s economic growth. JEL classification: G01, E44, E65 Keywords: Growth, Global Financial Crisis, Stimulus Package, Structural Adjustment

Economic Growth, Inflation, and Monetary Policy in Pakistan: Preliminary Empirical Estimates

The recent increase in financial market volatility and the increased surge within developing world to become part of the global market have posed several challenges for policy-makers in the emerging markets to decide on a policy regime— monetary or exchange rate—that suits their needs and could also provide stability to the financial system. In view of the macroeconomic characteristics of these emerging economies, the choice of an appropriate policy becomes important to achieve certain targets such as sizeable domestic and foreign investment, reduced reliance on external borrowings, fiscal discipline, etc. These would require both price and exchange rate stability and country’s ability to deal with external shocks to maintain and achieve sustainable economic growth. Pakistan is no different and until recently had a history of macroeconomic imbalances with extremely high foreign (as well as domestic) debt, high budget and current account deficits, extremely low international reserves, high inflation, high nominal interest rates and low economic growth. The average economic growth over 40 years is around 4 percent. The main focus of any policy has been to achieve a sustainable growth pattern. However, due to a number of macroeconomic imbalances such as high budget deficits, extremely high indebtedness, low savings and investment rates, lack of fiscal discipline, undeveloped financial markets, unstable exchange rates along with high population growth and huge defence expenditure made this task almost impossible. Some of these macroeconomic imbalances contributed to episodes of high inflation and unemployment that the country experienced during most of the period since independence.

1006. High Adherence and Cost Savings with Home OPAT Provided through Infectious Disease Physician Office Infusion Centers

Abstract Background Outpatient parenteral antimicrobial therapy (OPAT) has been shown to be safe and effective for self-administration but can lead to non-adherence without supervision. A physician office infusion center (POIC) with pharmacy services provides a unique opportunity to impact adherence and OPAT management. Patients (pts) typically come to the POIC weekly for catheter care, laboratory collection, medication pick-up and as needed provider visits. Often, close provider oversight allows for de-escalation of OPAT. We evaluated adherence to therapy, visits and associated cost saving in pts receiving self-administered OPAT through POICs. Methods Pts receiving home OPAT in 2021 were randomly selected from participating sites based on annual pt volume. Adherence was assessed as % of OPAT doses dispensed vs. doses missed. Frequency of office visits for routine catheter care and labs along with OPAT completion were collected. Cost savings were calculated in days of OPAT saved due to therapy de-escalation and response to therapy, based upon published daily costs of OPAT. Pt characteristics, OPAT duration, infection type and regimen were captured. Results A total of 125 of 2180 pts from 13 POICs nationally were included (mean age 50±18 years, 52% male). Mean OPAT duration was 38±9 days. Predominant infections were bone and joint (38%), complicated skin (18%), intra-abdominal (15%) and bacteremia (14%). The most common antimicrobials were cephalosporins (54%) with 20 pts self-administering ≥2 drugs. Pts had a mean of 6±3 POIC visits during the therapy course with completion as scheduled in 703/706 visits (99.6%). OPAT was completed as planned in 118 pts (94%), with discontinuations for adverse events (n=3), hospitalization (n=2), or non-adherence (n=2). Overall adherence rate was 99.3% with 51 missed of 7315 doses dispensed. De-escalation during OPAT saved 533 doses equating to 307 days of OPAT (2.4 days/pt). Based on an average daily OPAT cost of $140, this saved $42,980 in the randomized cohort and an estimated $749,571 annually in the entire population. Conclusion Home OPAT through an ID POIC was associated with a very high rate of adherence and compliance to scheduled visits in pts. ID oversight resulted in healthcare cost savings through onsite antimicrobial stewardship and therapy management. Disclosures Lucinda J. Van Anglen, PharmD, Merck &amp; Co.: Grant/Research Support|Paratek: Grant/Research Support.

Architecture design of cucurbit crops for enhanced productivity by a natural allele.

Increasing production efficiency is a top priority in agriculture. Optimal plant architecture is the biological basis of dense planting, high crop yield and labour cost savings, and is thus critical for improving agricultural productivity. In cucurbit crops, most species have elongated internodes, but the path to architecture improvement is still not clear. Here we identified a pumpkin accession with a dominant bushy trait, and found that the associated Bush locus harbours a cucurbit-conserved cis-regulatory element in the 5' untranslated region of a transcription factor gene YABBY1. In cucurbit crops, various B-region deletions enhance the translation of YABBY1, with consequent proportional suppression of stem length in a dose-dependent manner. Depending on different cultivation patterns, the precise deployment of these alleles has significant effects on yield improvement or labour cost saving. Our findings demonstrate that the engineering of the YABBY1 B-region is an efficient strategy to customize plant architecture in cucurbit crops.

Precautionary Social Planning

It is a truism of neoclassical economics that a sufficiently high savings rate will be bad if it is dynamically inefficient. Here we consider a Solow model in which households follow a savings rate dictated by a social planner. Ideally, the social planner would instruct households to save at the Golden Rule savings rate that maximizes consumption per capita, but this advice needs to be adjusted when the social planner has imperfect control over how much households actually save. Analogous to what happens with precautionary saving at the household level, in this case, the social planner will maximize social welfare by targeting a savings rate higher than the Golden Rule. Precautionary social planning then yields a dynamically inefficient allocation, albeit with greater stability of consumption, which is often a stated priority of social planners.

Comprehensive Weldability Criterion for Magnetic Pulse Welding of Dissimilar Materials

Despite its exceptional ability to join dissimilar materials and environmental friendliness, several challenges must be addressed in magnetic pulse welding (MPW). The conventional weldability criterion (i.e., minimum impact velocity) is analytically calculated as a function of material properties without considering the geometry of electromagnetic coil, electrical and physical parameters, making the minimum impact velocity a necessary but not sufficient condition for a sound MPW joint. A new weldability criterion, namely effective impact velocity, is proposed, which overcomes the conventional weldability criterion’s limitations. The effective impact velocity can be inversely modelled to identify shop-floor relevant process parameters and it eliminates the need to fabricate several coils in the process and product proving stages. The proposed approach is demonstrated by a case study on tubular welding of Aluminium and SS304. The weld’s soundness produced with computed process parameters was corroborated by experimental observations on lap shear tests, hardness measurements, optical and scanning electron microscopy, and surface energy dispersive spectroscopy mapping. This investigation is expected to pave the way for developing the process window for MPW of several material combinations, with high cost and time savings.

Potential energy savings benefits and limitations of radiative cooling coatings for U.S. residential buildings

Radiative coatings are a promising strategy to implement passive cooling that provides an eco-friendly pathway to achieve energy efficiency in buildings. This study investigates the benefits and limitations of implementing radiative coatings on the building envelope, particularly the roof, of residential buildings in the United States. The analysis compares the performance of an ideal radiative coating with broadband surface properties to a realistic radiative coating with diffuse and semitransparent properties. To enhance the net energy efficiency of buildings, we carried out a comprehensive parametric analysis comprising key radiation surface properties to maximize cooling energy savings while minimizing heating energy penalties. A countrywide assessment for 68 locations across the United States showed that net energy savings are a strong function of the climatic and atmospheric conditions. Broadly, southern locations showed high overall energy savings whereas northern locations exhibited high overall energy penalties. Locations in International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) climate zones 1A, 2A, and 2B showed a net annual energy savings above 5%, whereas locations in IECC climate zones 5B, 6B, and 7 showed a net annual energy penalty greater than 3%. The hot and dry climate of Phoenix, Arizona, showed the highest overall energy savings of 426 kWh (6.2%). Additionally, the mathematical correlation reveals that the net energy savings of a location is positive only when its average cooling degree days is greater than 5.5 or its average heating degree days is less than 10.

An effectiveness and cost-estimation model for deploying assistive technology solutions in elderly care

ABSTRACT Background Deployment of modern assistive technologies is one of the major trends. The main objective is the provisioning of the effectiveness and cost-estimation model for deploying assistive technology solutions in elderly care intended for evaluation and showing specificity to the costs and associated benefits of providing smart technological solutions for seniors. Methods The model uses demographic projections taken from Eurostat for EU countries and the disability incidence from the annual report of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs of the Czech Republic as an input. The model was implemented in the software Stella Professional dedicated to system dynamics modelling. Results In relation to the combination of five assistive devices for the elderly the optimal solution the cost savings are 37.8% or182 billion CZK, cumulatively in the simulated time period 2021–2060. The model allows adjustments regarding price levels of various countries through the caregivers’ wage. Obtained results showed robustness of the model to this uncertainty as percentage savings varied only from 37.6% to 39.8%, a mere 2.2% difference. Conclusion With respect to the ongoing demographic transition, the need to employ smart device solutions should further increase and their price could decline. The highest savings will come from countries with higher wages for carers.

Majority Approximators for Low-Latency Data Bus Inversion

Data bus inversion (DBI) is an encoding technique that saves power in data movement in which the majority function plays an essential role. For a latency optimization, the majority function can be replaced by a majority approximator that allows for a small error in majority voting to obtain a faster encoder that still saves power. In this work, we propose two systematic approaches for finding high-performance majority approximators. First, we perform an exhaustive search of all possible Boolean functions to find an optimal approximator based on a certain circuit structure comprised of fifteen logic gates. The approximator found by the systematic search can be implemented using compound gates, resulting in a latency-efficient design with only two gate levels. Compared with prior works using a heuristic idea, the proposed circuit runs at the same speed but achieves greater switching activity savings. Second, we propose another majority approximator using the average of three randomly permuted copies of the approximator found in the first approach. We show that the second proposed approximator achieves even higher savings in switching activity as its function is closer to a true majority voter. We report various performance metrics of the newly found majority approximators based on syntheses using a 65 nm process.