Supply Imbalance Research Articles

Ecosystem services in Jiangsu province: Changes in the supply and demand patterns and its influencing factors

Revealing the spatial and temporal changing characteristics and key factors driving the relationship between the supply of and demand for ecosystem services (SDES) is paramount for the effective management of regional ecosystems and the rational allocation of natural resources. This study calculated the supply of ecosystem services (ESS) in Jiangsu Province, China, in 2000, 2010, and 2020, and quantitatively evaluated the ecosystem service demand (ESD) in those years by considering land development intensity, population density, and economic conditions. The ‘coupling coordination degree and relative development degree’ (CDRD) model is introduced to explore the degree of coordination and change in the relationship of supply versus demand of ecosystem services, and then to reveal the impact of various factors on the spatial differentiation characteristics of the SDES. The results show that: 1) the ESS is high in the Taihu Lake Plain, the southwest of Huaihai area and the eastern coastal zone of Jiangsu Province, yet low in the northwest and middle of Huaihai area, and along the Yangtze River Plain. The overall distribution pattern of ESD and the coordinating degree of the SDES is high in the south and north of Jiangsu Province but low in the province’s middle. 2) The degree of coordination for the SDES increased from 0.371 to 0.415, and the relationship between supply and demand changed from one of moderate imbalance to one of basic coordination. The imbalance of supply and demand is mainly concentrated in the Lixiahe area, coastal plain area, and middle of the Huaihe River Basin, for which the predominant type is a moderate imbalance–demand lag. Meanwhile, the analysis of influencing factors shows that there is an obvious synergistic effect between different factors. The results of this research could contribute to sustainable ecosystem management and decision-making for the construction of ecological civilization in Jiangsu Province.

Primary logistics planning of oil products under the imbalance of supply and demand

This paper intends to complete the primary logistics planning of oil products under the imbalance of supply and demand. An integrated mathematical programming model is developed to simultaneously find the balance between supply and demand, and optimize the logistics scheme. The model takes minimum logistics cost and resource adjustment cost as the objective function, and takes supply and demand capacity, transportation capacity, mass balance, and resource adjustment rules as constraints. Three adjustment rules are considered in the model, including resource adjustment within oil suppliers, within oil consumers, and between oil consumers. The model is tested on a large-scale primary logistics of a state-owned petroleum enterprise, involving 37 affiliated refineries, 31 procurement departments, 286 market depots and dedicated consumers. After the unified optimization, the supply and demand imbalance is eased by 97% and the total cost is saved by 7%, which proves the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed model.

Advanced Foot step power generation system for mobile charging

The major focus of this study is the generation of electric power from people’s footsteps and the pressure applied when walking. “Advanced Foot Step Power Generation System” refers to the mechanical power transformation into electrical power as a result of the pressure generated by the footstep and the use of transducers. The power-producing floor generates power, which is essentially the conversion of kinetic energy into electrical energy. Today’s electricity demand is growing, and existing power generation sources are unable to meet this worldwide challenge. The fundamental issue of the energy crisis is the demand and supply imbalance. Although it will not be enough to meet the world’s overwhelming need for electrical energy, it will be able to transform and reduce dependency on traditional methods of generating electricity. It can be implemented on roadside footpaths, parks and jogging tracks, as well as many other public places, such as airports, and will have a significant impact on electrical power generation.

Locating Parking Hubs in Free-Floating Ride Share Systems via Data-Driven Optimization

This paper presents a data-driven study on locating parking hubs in free-floating ride share systems. Recently, there has been an increase in free-floating ride share systems, where users are allowed to pick up and drop off shared vehicles anywhere in the service area. However, these systems can suffer from significant demand and supply imbalance, while certain parking habits may disturb the desired city layout. A potential solution is to allocate parking hubs in an optimal manner to regulate the behaviour of the users. This paper develops a scenario optimization model for finding the optimal locations of parking hubs. The model determines the capacities and locations of the parking hubs, while considering the uncertainty of parking demand and points of interest in the area. We design an algorithm that combines the idea of Constraint-and-Column Generation and the Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM) algorithm to solve the optimization problem in a decentralized manner, and accompany the computed solution with a probabilistic performance certificate. We also compare the adopted approach with respect to a worst case paradigm both in terms of computational cost and in terms of conservatism of the resulting solution. Numerical results show that the proposed method leads to a less conservative performance compared to the worst case method, and reduces the computational cost compared to the classical ADMM.

The Russian Economy under the Impact of the Pandemic Crisis.

The main channels of influence of the new coronavirus infection pandemic on the economy are analyzed. The key features of the economic crisis caused by the pandemic are emphasized, the scale and depth of the economic decline largely depending on the actions of the authorities to restrict economic activity. It has been stated that as the pandemic crisis developed, the governments of the largest countries of the world adapted to its negative consequences for the economy, which was reflected in a decrease in the dependence of economic activity on the incidence of COVID-19. The effectiveness of economic support measures implemented in Russia and key countries of the world during the crisis is assessed. The failures of market self-regulation during the crisis, which led to a significant imbalance of supply and demand in world markets, are considered. Along with the success of the Russian government in reducing the negative impact of the pandemic on the economy, attention is drawn to the serious social and demographic damage that our country has suffered as a result of the pandemic. The main trends for compensating for losses are formed, and the medium- and long-term potential for the development of the Russian economy after the pandemic crisis is assessed. This article is an amended and updated version of the author’s report at the Scientific Session of the RAS General Meeting on December 15, 2021.

Rare Causes of Acute Coronary Syndrome: Carbon Monoxide Poisoning.

Acute coronary syndrome (ACS) is a spectrum of clinical and paraclinical disorders arising from an imbalance of oxygen demand and supply to the myocardium. The most common cause is atherosclerosis; however, other rare causes such as carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning should be considered. Through tissue hypoxia and direct cell injury, CO poisoning can lead to a broad spectrum of cardiac disorders, especially ACS. Materials and Methods. We have conducted a retrospective study in the Toxicology Department of Saint Spiridon Emergency University Hospital, including all patients admitted through the emergency department with CO poisoning. We divided the cohort into event group (myocardial injury) and non-event group (patients without myocardial injury) and performed a subset analysis of the former. Results. A total of 65 patients were included, 22 in the event and 43 in the non-event group. The severity of poisoning did not correlate with myocardial injury; however, 50% of the event group had severe poisoning with carboxyhaemoglobin ≥ 20%. Cardiac enzyme markers (troponin and creatin-kinase MB) had a statistically significant increase in the event group compared to the non-event group (p < 0.05). Most of the patients in the STEMI (50%) and NSTEMI (66.7%) groups had severe CO intoxication. The STEMI group had a mean age of 27.7 years old and no comorbidities. Conclusions. Myocardial injury can develop in CO poisoning irrespective of the severity of poisoning, and it can be transient, reversible, or permanent. Our study introduces new information on adverse cardiac events in patients with CO poisoning, focusing on the ACS. We found that the severity of CO poisoning plays an important role in developing myocardial injury, as 50% of patients in the event group were severely intoxicated. While in-hospital mortality in our study was low, further prospective studies should investigate the long-term mortality in these patients.

Development Strategy of Education for the Elderly Based on the Perspective of Equalization of Public Services

It is an important measure to deal with aging, forge ahead in the new era and gather positive energy to conduct education for the elderly in a better manner. Since the reform and opening up, China has made historic achievements in the development of education for the elderly, and formed a relatively complete education system for the elderly in a relatively short period of time, which better meets the spiritual and cultural needs of the elderly. However, we should also see that the regional imbalance and low quality of supply of education for the elderly still exist in China. Based on this and from the perspective of public service equalization, this paper firstly analyzes and sorts out the main problems in the current development of education for the elderly in China, with focuses on the actual situation.The development strategy of elderly education was proposed from aspects of strengthening the basic theoretical research, the development orientation of aged education, strengthening the construction of old school, balanced layout of elderly education resources, strengthening the construction of old education team, diversified supply with hope to further promote the new age old education enterprise innovation and development to provide some ideas for further promoting the innovation and development of education for the elderly in the new era.

Integrated control strategy of district heating system based on load forecasting and indoor temperature measurement

District heating system (DHS) plays an important role in attaining sustainable energy systems, which can conveniently provide energy-efficient space heating. At present, it is common that heat source and stations are operated and regulated separately by different owners. Their own technicians adjust the operation parameters empirically with fine-tune according to users’ complaint. This kind of isolated and extensive regulation often results in imbalance of supply and demand featuring in large indoor temperature fluctuation and waste of energy. In order to tackle this problem, this paper proposes an integrated control strategy based on load forecasting and correction according to indoor temperature measurement. Firstly, regulation period and regulation time nodes of heat source and stations are determined. Then, water supply temperature of heat source and heat stations are predicted respectively. The predicted water supply temperature of heat stations is corrected by the measured average indoor temperature under their own heating zone, while the overall average is used to correct the predicted water supply temperature of the heat source. Field study in a realistic DHS project shows that the proposed method effectively improved the users’ thermal comfort reducing indoor temperature non-uniformity coefficient from 0.0310 to 0.0196. Hydraulic instability index reduced from 0.63 to 0.19 which means pipe network pressure fluctuation is mitigated. An energy saving rate about 6.75% was yield which is quite considerable.

Dampak Kemitraan Closed Loop Terhadap Pendapatan dan Efisiensi Usahatani Cabai

The issue of an imbalance in demand and supply of red chili and fluctuating red chili prices have initiated the Ministry of Economy, especially the Deputy for Food and Agribusiness Coordination, to implement a pilot of closed loop partnership model. The partnership is a form of cooperation that is beneficial for parties who have agreed, usually, partnerships are formed and carried out between parties who have agreed and have been bound by an agreement, SOP, or contract. The purpose of this study is there is an impact on the income and farm efficiency of chili farmers in partnership with non-partner farmers in Garut and Sukabumi Regency?. The data analysis carried out includes qualitative data analysis methods that are described descriptively in the analysis of farm performance. The quantitative analysis method used farm income analysis, income and cost comparison analysis (R/C Ratio), and different test analyses to determine the level of efficiency of chili farming commodities by partner and non-partner farmers in Garut and Sukabumi Regency. The results of this study indicate that the profit of closed loop chili farming is more profitable (IDR89.889.654/ha/season with R/C=2,06). Although the productivity and quality of chili produced by closed loop farmers (8,691 tons/ha) is relatively similar to non-closed loop farmers (8,491 tons/ha), it can be seen that the price received by closed loop farmers is higher (IDR15.457/kg) compared to the price received by non-closed loop farmers (IDR11.998/kg). The closed loop partnership model can be considered to have a positive impact on the income and efficiency of chili farming.

Activatable near-infrared fluorescent probe triggered by nitroreductase for in vivo ulcerative colitis hypoxia imaging

Ulcerative colitis is a prevalent inflammatory disease caused by the intestinal bacterial infection. And it is related to the hypoxic degrees in the colon microenvironment. Hypoxia, a condition of imbalance in O2 supply and consumption, is accompanied by the overexpressed level of nitroreductase (NTR). Therefore, the NTR detection has been widely applied for the diagnosis of hypoxia-related diseases. In this study, we developed a novel near-infrared fluorescent probe (IW-1) for NTR. Upon reaction with NTR, IW-1 exhibited a significant fluorescence off-on response at 740 nm with a low detection limit of 0.043 μg/mL. Confocal fluorescence imaging verified its ability to detect the overexpression of NTR in cancer cells. More significantly, IW-1 was applied for in vivo hypoxia imaging in tumors and dextran sulphate sodium (DSS)-induced ulcerative colitis mouse model. We expect that the probe may present a new tool for better understanding the biological functions of NTR as well as revealing essential information about hypoxia-related pathological processes, including cancer and ulcerative colitis.

SWOT analysis of influenza vaccination promotion of primary care staff based on the perspective of the supplier, customer, and management

Objective: To analyze the situation of influenza vaccination among primary healthcare workers, find out the problems, and explore the strategies and measures to promote influenza vaccination among grass-roots medical staff. Methods: From April to May 2021, key insider interviews and literature research were carried out based on the perspectives of influenza vaccine suppliers (influenza vaccine manufacturers), consumers (primary medical institutions and primary healthcare workers), and managers (governments at all levels, health administrative departments and disease prevention and control departments). The SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis technique was used to comprehensively evaluate the current situation of influenza vaccination among grass-roots healthcare workers, and a SWOT analysis matrix was established. Results: Influenza vaccination of grass-roots healthcare workers have advantages and opportunities, including primary medical and health institutions' vital influenza vaccination accessibility, influenza vaccine safety is higher, COVID-19 outbreak improves the public awareness of respiratory infectious diseases and vaccine production enthusiasm, coronavirus vaccination has strengthened the capacity of the vaccine distribution system. There are also disadvantages and threats such as the high price of influenza vaccine, insufficient supply, low awareness of influenza vaccine vaccination among grass-roots healthcare workers, lack of demand assessment mechanism on influenza vaccine, poor vaccine deployment, structural imbalance in vaccine supply in different areas, and severe vaccine waste. SWOT analysis matrix of the influenza vaccination status of grass-roots healthcare workers was established, forming dominant opportunity (SO) strategy, dominant threat (ST) strategy, inferior opportunity (WO) strategy, and inferior threat (WT) strategy. Conclusion: Measures should be taken by the supplier, the demand-side, and the management side to improve the influenza vaccine coverage rate of primary healthcare workers, but the emphasis should be on the coordination and management of the management side.

Assessment of diversity within the Nigeria power generation technologies

The protracted imbalance and shortage in electricity supply in Nigeria has being adjudged to be multidimensional: ranging from generation to billing, due to inability to diversify our power generation technologies away from hydro and gas. Thus, this paper attempts to assess the extent of diversification of power generation technologies within the industry. Shannon Wiener diversity index was adapted to measures the extent of energy diversity among current and potential power generation technologies available to Nigeria. The result revealed an index value less than 1.5 indicating that the current energy mix has not been fully diversified, while the cumulative energy diversity indices estimated was 0.6, 1.3, 1.7 and 2.0 for year 2015, 2020, 2025, and 2030 respectively. It is expected that the introduction of other conventional and renewable resources into the mix will increase diversity and boost supply.

Analysis and prediction of charging behaviors for private battery electric vehicles with regular commuting: A case study in Beijing

Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) assume a critical role in the promotion of transportation electrification. Accurate analysis and prediction of BEVs charging behaviors are essential to solving the issues, such as electricity supply imbalance stemming from the BEVs increasing volume. To achieve that, the agent-based trip chain model (ABTCM) and nested logit model (NL) are proposed in this study based on meter-level real-world data. In our investigation, not only the general charging patterns including trip chains distributions and dynamic attributes, but also the different charging strategies influencing mechanisms are profoundly estimated. The results demonstrate that most BEVs dispense with charging in the chain during one-day trips and users generally hold moderate range psychology before departure. For charging patterns, the longer people travel, the more inclined they are to adopt the fast charging strategy. The start moment SOC, consumed SOC, travel distance, the speed and weather, as well as all last charging status, are common significant factors for both slow charging and fast charging. The argument reveals that it is more applicable to consider charging scene context when exploring BEVs charging behaviors. Furthermore, the task of charging behaviors is conducted by the united NL model, which displays the effectiveness with accessible accuracy.

Practical Applications of Does Rare Whisky Add Value in Multi-Asset Portfolios?

In <b><i>Does Rare Whisky Add Value in Multi-Asset Portfolios?</i></b> from the Spring 2022 issue of <b><i>The Journal of Alternative Investments</i></b>, <b>Lars Tegtmeier</b> at <b>Merseburg University of Applied Sciences</b> finds that investing in rare whisky¹ adds value to a portfolio. He explains that supply and demand factors driving whisky prices are different from many other assets. This difference stems in part from the whisky aging process, so the current supply is due to production decisions made many years in the past. Past demand and supply imbalances led to a shortage in rare whisky and subsequently a dramatic increase in auction sales of whisky bottles and high returns. Tegtmeier explains that the unique pricing factors driving returns are uncorrelated with other major asset classes. He then studies the impact of adding rare whisky to multiasset portfolios. Additionally, he reviews several methods of accessing rare whisky exposure and the associated costs in this small but developing market.

Regional Labor Market of it Specialists in the Conditions of Digital Transformation of the Economy and Social Sphere

Relevance. The Russian economy is steadily moving towards digitalization. The corona virus epidemic caused a rapid pace of digitalization, accelerated the processes of automation and digitalization of the economy and social life of society.These objective processes have led to the need to access the IT labor market in order to identify trends in meeting the sharply increased demand of companies for IT specialists.The purpose of the study to assess the current situation and problems that have developed in the labor market of the Kursk region in the field of supply and demand of IT specialists.The objectives were to assess: the job market in the region, the requests and proposals of employers; the structure of vacancies; activity and portrait of applicants.Methodology. The research methodology is based on system, resource and process approaches. Traditional methods for theoretical and applied research were used - statistical analysis, indexing of information, comparison, generalization. The research material was statistical data of the federal all-Russian database of vacancies and summaries of the labor market of IT specialists.Results. Analyzed and systematized the data of the Internet recruitment portal Bounty Hunter (based on the parsing of resumes and vacancies). The analysis of the composition and structure of this part of the labor market is carried out, the indicators of supply and demand on it are compared. Studies have revealed a significant imbalance of supply and demand in the regional labor market in the IT sector, including in terms of employee specialization. There is a significant difference in professional specialization in the offers of applicants and in vacancies of potential employers.Conclusions. The demand for IT specialists has grown significantly. The lack of personnel is the main obstacle to the accelerated development of the IT sector of the region's economy. It is possible to eliminate the imbalance between supply and demand by implementing the following measures: targeted training of IT specialists for the real needs of employers; organization of additional professional education with a specific specialization; improvement of the external HR brand of companies and motivation of IT specialists.

Joint Optimization of Energy Storage Sharing and Demand Response in Microgrid Considering Multiple Uncertainties

Energy storage (ES) is playing an increasingly important role in reducing the spatial and temporal power imbalance of supply and demand caused by the uncertainty and periodicity of renewable energy in the microgrid. The utilization efficiency of distributed ES belonging to different entities can be improved through sharing, and considerable flexibility resources can be provided to the microgrid through the coordination of ES sharing and demand response, but its reliability is affected by multiple uncertainties from different sources. In this study, a two-stage ES sharing mechanism is proposed, in which the idle ES capacity is aggregated on the previous day to provide reliable resources for real-time optimization. Then, a two-layer semi-coupled optimization strategy based on a deep deterministic policy gradient is proposed to solve the asynchronous decision problems of day-ahead sharing and intra-day optimization. To deal with the impact of multiple uncertainties, Monte Carlo sampling is applied to ensure that the shared ES capacity is sufficient in any circumstances. Simulation verifies that the local consumption rate of renewable energy is effectively increased by 12.9%, and both microgrid operator and prosumers can improve their revenue through the joint optimization of ES sharing and demand response.

UN Peacekeeping Operations: Features of Arms and Equipment Procurement

In this article, the author elaborates on the structure of the purchase and rental of arms and other equipment used in United Nations peacekeeping missions. Moreover, the author determines the place of the Russian Federation in this process. The objectives of the work are to identify weaknesses in the system of procurement and rental of arms and other necessary equipment by the United Nations peacekeeping forces, determine the place of the Russian Federation in the system and draw up a single step-by-step instruction, Includes an analysis of pre-qualification requirements for the supplier, the UN Supplier Code and various levels of registration with a list of required documents, for registration of suppliers and the participation of the latter in international competitive bidding. Disadvantages of the system of purchase and lease of armament and other equipment necessary for implementation of UN peacekeeping missions have been revealed, imbalance in supply of lethal weapons between the countries of the collective West and the Russian Federation has been found. A number of scientific publications, both domestic and foreign, are devoted to peacekeeping. It follows that the relevance of the article is due to the little study of the structure of procurement and rental of weapons and other equipment used in UN peacekeeping missions.

Insight into Crosstalk Between Mitophagy and Apoptosis/Necroptosis: Mechanisms and Clinical Applications in Ischemic Stroke

Ischemic stroke is a serious cerebrovascular disease with high morbidity and mortality. As a result of ischemia-reperfusion, a cascade of pathophysiological responses is triggered by the imbalance in metabolic supply and demand, resulting in cell loss. These cellular injuries follow various molecular mechanisms solely or in combination with this disorder. Mitochondria play a driving role in the pathophysiological processes of ischemic stroke. Once ischemic stroke occurs, damaged cells would respond to such stress through mitophagy. Mitophagy is known as a conservatively selective autophagy, contributing to the removal of excessive protein aggregates and damaged intracellular components, as well as aging mitochondria. Moderate mitophagy may exert neuroprotection against stroke. Several pathways associated with the mitochondrial network collectively contribute to recovering the homeostasis of the neurovascular unit. However, excessive mitophagy would also promote ischemia-reperfusion injury. Therefore, mitophagy is a double-edged sword, which suggests that maximizing the benefits of mitophagy is one of the direction of future efforts. This review emphasized the role of mitophagy in ischemic stroke, and highlighted the crosstalk between mitophagy and apoptosis/necroptosis.

Examining the nonlinear impacts of built environment on ridesourcing usage: Focus on the critical urban sub-regions

Ridesourcing or on-demand ridesharing, offers a sustainable mobility option that connects drivers with passengers via mobile application directly, which helps reduce unnecessary vehicle cruising and energy consumption. It plays a crucial role in urban mobility within the built environment. However, the interdependency between ridesourcing usage and built environment has not been addressed adequately, particularly in the critical regions that have significant influence on ridesourcing usage in an urban context. Based on percolation theory, this study suggests a new concept, namely ridesourcing usage islands, defined as geographical areas of interest with a high or low concentration of ridesourcing usage. Within these noteworthy areas, a machine learning method, gradient boosting decision trees (GBDT), is further innovatively adopted to investigate the refined and discontinuous non-linear impacts of built environment on ridesourcing usage. The results reveal a hierarchical structure of ridesourcing usage islands. Regional imbalances of travel supply and demand at usage island level are sporadically identified across several regions. Besides, the formation of usage islands is highly influenced by the surrounding built environment. Most importantly, employment density and residential density have joint contribution of almost 20% for ridesourcing pick up demand and drop off demand respectively, reflecting the role of ridesourcing in commuting. Regardless of island's type, built environment features show obvious threshold effects on ridesourcing usage, and their specific effective ranges are different from each other. Findings in this paper are expected to help better understand ridesourcing use as a function of urban built environment, and provide valuable inputs for ridesourcing management and sustainable urban development.

Battery technology and recycling alone will not save the electric mobility transition from future cobalt shortages

In recent years, increasing attention has been given to the potential supply risks of critical battery materials, such as cobalt, for electric mobility transitions. While battery technology and recycling advancement are two widely acknowledged strategies for addressing such supply risks, the extent to which they will relieve global and regional cobalt demand–supply imbalance remains poorly understood. Here, we address this gap by simulating historical (1998-2019) and future (2020-2050) global cobalt cycles covering both traditional and emerging end uses with regional resolution (China, the U.S., Japan, the EU, and the rest of the world). We show that cobalt-free batteries and recycling progress can indeed significantly alleviate long-term cobalt supply risks. However, the cobalt supply shortage appears inevitable in the short- to medium-term (during 2028-2033), even under the most technologically optimistic scenario. Our results reveal varying cobalt supply security levels by region and indicate the urgency of boosting primary cobalt supply to ensure global e-mobility ambitions.