Low Capacity Utilization Research Articles

СТВОРЕННЯ МУЛЬТИМОДАЛЬНОГО ТРАНСПОРТНО-ЛОГІСТИЧНОГО ЦЕНТРУ: ПРОБЛЕМИ ТА ПЕРСПЕКТИВИ

The location of the state at the intersection of the main transport arteries between Europe and Asia and between the Scandinavian countries and the Mediterranean region provides unique opportunities for the development of transit, but despite the importance and potential in the field of logistics services, the country's transport capacity is used inefficiently and not at full capacity, infrastructure and services provided to shippers and logistics providers are low by global standards, and logistics costs are quite high. Today, taking into account the constant growth of world trade, the priority direction of the development of the country's transport policy has become the effective use of already existing transport communications under the condition of a favorable geographical location. Therefore, in order to ensure the smooth operation of global transport flows, the country needs to create multimodal transport and logistics centers. The development of transport and warehouse logistics is a necessary condition for increasing the efficiency of the movement of goods in domestic and international communication while realizing the transit potential of our country. Currently, a multimodal transport and logistics center is understood as a multifunctional terminal complex, which is located at the nodes of the transport network, performs the functions of a logistics transport and distribution center and ensures the coordination and interaction of various types of transport, the performance of loading and unloading operations and transshipment of goods, short-term and long-term storage, cargo processing, execution of the necessary customs procedures, complex transport and forwarding service, ensuring the delivery of goods to customers using "door-to-door" and "just-in-time" technologies, provides a full range of service and commercial and business services, including production and technical, banking, information, consulting and analytical services and other types of logistics services. At the same time, due to the integration of commodity, information, financial and service flows, the maximum synergistic effect is achieved. It is worth noting that currently in our country, the creation of warehouse complexes is completely in the hands of private entrepreneurship. There is still no state development program. The impossibility of imposing on an entrepreneur the creation of a large multimodal center is associated with significant construction costs and a long payback period, as it involves significant investments in infrastructure. The entrepreneur's decision is influenced only by market demands. And the decrease in production volumes, the unstable political situation, the closure of the eastern border and other factors make the creation of multimodal centers insufficiently in demand. Our country needs urgent measures to improve the level of logistics services, as the industry suffers from low capacity utilization, inadequate infrastructure and high costs. And the developed system of logistics centers makes it possible to reduce supply chains, optimize product flows, and increase the maneuverability of supply. In fact, logistics centers are created in order to solve the problem of delivering goods from the supplier to the consumer in the shortest time and with the lowest financial costs.

An intelligent scheme for congestion control: When active queue management meets deep reinforcement learning

With the explosive growth of data transmission requirements, the massive bursty traffic results in more frequent and serious network congestion. To deal with the burst traffic, the buffer size of the network is designed to be much larger than required. However, increasing buffer size leads to bufferbloat problem, which exacerbates network congestion. To address this problem, Active Queue Management (AQM) is proposed to cooperate with Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) congestion control mechanism. But it is hard to model dynamic AQM/TCP system and tune the parameters of conventional AQM schemes to obtain good performance under different congestion scenarios. In this paper, we aim to study the AQM scheme from a whole new perspective by leveraging emerging Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL). A model-free approach, DRL-AQM, enables the AQM to learn the best dropping policy as human beings learn skills. DRL-AQM can capture intricate patterns in the data traffic model after trained in a simple network scenario, and leverage this to improve performance in a great variety of scenarios. There are two phases in our scheme, offline training phase and deployment phase. Once the model is trained, it can work well without any parameter-tuning in many scenarios. Experimental results show that (1) DRL-AQM outperforms conventional AQM algorithms in a variety of complex network scenarios and it is robust and insensitive to network conditions. (2) DRL-AQM keeps persistently low buffer capacity utilization without over dropping and damaging throughput. (3) DRL-AQM adapts automatically and continuously to the dynamics of the network links.

Factors to Promote Ocean Energy in India

India's energy demand is expected to rise to 4000 TWh by 2030. The country will require five times more renewable energy (RE) in 2030 to meet the policy targets. The current RE development plans are land-intensive, highly intermittent, low-capacity utilization, and the inability to support the baseload requirement. It is time for India to diversify its RE basket and accommodate ocean energy (OE) in its policy landscape. Studies have identified factors for RE sources such as solar, onshore wind, and offshore wind etc. Literature clarifies that policy plays a vital role in developing RE. Hence, this study aims to identify the factors for OE development. The responses were collected from the stakeholders interested in RE development in India. This study has ranked grid connection and capacity building as the top two variables using the weighted average method. Factor Analysis results identified six factors: government support, regulatory and fiscal incentives, financing mechanisms, economic tools, promotion of local content, and capacity-building for research and skill development. Promotion of local content and capacity-building are additions to the literature as factors. This paper advocates the socialisation of evacuation cost, financial, fiscal certainty and continuity, priority sector lending, and demand-supply side support for OE development.

Vibrant Color Palettes of Electrochromic Manganese Oxide Electrodes for Colorful Zn‐Ion Battery

AbstractColorful electrochromic batteries operating in the visible region, which display their residual capacity through real‐time color variation, have recently attracted tremendous attention due to the ever‐rising demands of smart electronics. However, the currently available electrochromic batteries incur certain serious limitations, such as, low capacity utilization, non‐aesthetic versatility, and unsatisfactory performance in practical applications. Manganese oxide, as an extensively used cathode material in zinc‐ion batteries (ZIBs), can yield a prominently high energy density, but with a poor electrochromic performance. By designing a metamaterial with a photonic metastructure, manganese oxide can be remolded into an attractive electrochromic electrode, which shows vibrant color palettes capable of accurately displaying the stored energy level. Based on the combined oxidic and reductive coloration in the as‐prepared manganese oxide electrodes, the developed electrochromic ZIB exhibits a high capacity of 283 mAh g−1 at 0.2 A g−1, with an energy retrieval rate up to 72% during the round‐trip solar charging and galvanostatic discharging processes. This electrochromic ZIB with vibrant color palettes exhibits promising application in next‐generation electrochromic devices with multiple functionalities.

Design and Development of High-Loading Carbon-Sulfur Nanocomposite Cathodes with Drop-Casting Method

Advanced rechargeable batteries that can be widely applied in different energy-storage systems require a high energy density, a stable cyclability, and low costs in materials and fabrications. The commercial lithium-ion batteries exhibit high discharge capacity with a long cycle life, which allows them to dominate the current rechargeable battery markets. With the continuous development, the lithium-ion battery chemistry would soon encounter the theoretical material limitations. The mature fabrication technique and materials science have promoted the lithium-ion battery cathodes to meet their theoretical charge-storage capacity values. Moreover, the lithium insertion compounds have to maintain a stable crystal structure by limiting the full electrochemical utilization of the active material during cycling. Furthermore, with an increasing demand for lithium-ion battery products, the high prices and limited availability of the raw materials impact the market and the development of future lithium-ion batteries.To address these issues, a conversion-reaction cathode bypasses the limitation of low theoretical charge-storage capacity and limited electrochemical utilization garner significant attention. Among various conversion-reaction cathodes, the lithium-sulfur system is the most promising candidate for developing the post-lithium-ion technology with higher energy density at an affordable cost. This is primarily due to its naturally-abundant and low-cost sulfur cathode possesses a high charge-storage capacity of 1,672 mA∙h g-1, which makes the lithium-sulfur cells to approach a high energy density of about two to three times higher than that of current lithium-ion batteries. However, many obstacles limit the fast commercialization of lithium-sulfur technology. The low electronic conductivity values of sulfur and its end-discharged sulfides affect the electrochemical utilization of the active material and the development of a high-loading sulfur cathode for demonstrating a high energy density. In between sulfur and sulfides, the polysulfide intermediates generated during charge and discharge states are liquid-state active materials and have high solubility toward the liquid electrolyte. The dissolution of polysulfides would irreversibly diffuse out from the cathode and uncontrollably migrate in the cell, which causes the loss of active material from the cathode, the contamination of electrolyte, and the corrosion of the lithium metal anode. Consequently, the polysulfide issues result in poor electrochemical stability and further impact the high-loading cathode performance.This presentation will focus on the use of a drop-casting method to fabricate a high-loading carbon-sulfur nanocomposite cathode. Subsequently, we apply the developed high-loading nanocomposite cathode for exploring the effect of carbons’ nanopore sizes toward the electrochemical performance of sulfur cathodes. First, the drop-casted carbon-sulfur nanocomposite cathodes are fabricated with various carbon-sulfur nanocomposites. Super P-Sulfur, Ketjenblack-Sulfur, Black Pearl-Sulfur, and Vulcan Black-Sulfur nanocomposites featuring the nonporous Super P carbon, the mixed micro/mesoporous Ketjenblack carbon, the microporous Black Pearl carbon, and the macroporous Vulcan Black carbon are synthesized by the melt-sulfur diffusion method. The carbon-sulfur nanocomposites are mixed with liquid electrolyte to form a paste, followed by drop-casting on the current collector. These carbon-sulfur nanocomposite cathodes attain and are fixed at a high sulfur loading and sulfur content of 4 mg cm-2 and 60 wt%, respectively. Our findings indicate that the Black Pearl-sulfur nanocomposite cathode exhibits the best overall electrochemical performances featuring the high rate capability from C/20 to C/3 rates, stable long-term cyclability, and high capacity retention of above 80% after 100 cycles. The Ketjenblack-sulfur nanocomposite cathode with mixed micro/mesoporous carbon shows similar performances, while relatively lower than those obtained by Black Pearl-sulfur nanocomposite. With no nanopores and with macropores, Super P-Sulfur and Vulcan Black-sulfur nanocomposites display short cycle life in 40 cycles and low electrochemical utilization of sulfur, respectively. As a result, a carbon-sulfur nanocomposite with microporous carbon as the host would give the excellent polysulfide retention and the active-material utilization. With a nonporous carbon substrate, the carbon-sulfur nanocomposite might encounter the diffusion of polysulfides from the cathode electrode during cycling. With a macroporous carbon, the carbon-sulfur nanocomposite might also face the polysulfide diffusion issue, while mainly the diffusion of polysulfides from the composite. All these results demonstrate that the drop-casting method is a promising solution to develop high-loading sulfur cathode. Moreover, the further optimization of the nanocomposite might improve the electrochemical performance of the resulting high-loading nanocomposite sulfur cathode.

Sushruth Ayurved Industry: strategies for growth

Learning outcomes Understand the dynamics of the diabetes supplement market and carry out an industry analysis using Porter’s five force analysis. Understand the challenges faced by a small entrepreneur in setting up distribution channels and examine the channel powers that come into play in the given context. Discuss the merits and demerits of traditional vs online channels. Understand the factors that are important to succeed in a highly competitive diabetes supplement industry (this would include aspects such as value sought by end customer, business-to-business [B2B] buyers, expertise required to handle B2B customers and also the price and salesforce reward approaches). Enumerate the merits and demerits of individual product branding vs an umbrella brand for a company selling over-the-counter (OTC) drugs online. Understand the various considerations for export marketing for OTC drugs. Case overview/synopsis Sushruth Ayurved Industry (SAI) is a proprietorship firm owned by Girish Banvi who always dreamt of being an entrepreneur. He had set up SAI to produce diabetes supplement by the name “Sugar Knocker” to give wings to his dreams. Notwithstanding competition from corporate players and demands from health-care practitioners, he had to abandon his traditional route to selling his product and open his eyes to online marketing. He believed it could provide him the perfect medium to reach his prospects directly without any middlemen within a cost-effective budget. SAI registered revenue of INR 24m per year, completely attributable to online sales. With a firm footing in the online space, Girish was now exploring physical marketing to expand his audience reach in the B2B market and also add new products to his portfolio. He was also worried about the low capacity utilization of his manufacturing unit, which stood at 20%. With only 30% of the 40 formulations used, there was much scope for expansion. With his plant capacity underused, the time was ripe for Girish to trace his footsteps from where he had begun in the first place. Complexity academic level This case can be used in marketing management course under the marketing strategy module. It can also find use in the elective course on marketing channels, and in sectoral programs such as health-care management or MBA in health care. This case can also be used in the health-care products marketing course. Supplementary materials Teaching notes are available for educators only. Subject code CSS 8: Marketing.

Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Freight Flows in Southern California

This paper analyses the spatio-temporal patterns of freight flows in Southern California using weigh-in-motion (WIM) data between 2003 and 2015. The study explores the spatial relationships between truck volumes, load ratios, and gross vehicle weights for different vehicle classes, through econometric and centrographic analyses during the study period. Overall, the results confirmed the existence of the logistics sprawl phenomenon, highlighted the effect of the 2008 to 2009 major recession in the concentration of freight facilities and flows, indicated that the changes in flow patterns vary for different vehicle classes, and found low vehicle capacity utilization for light- (WIM classes 5–7) and medium- (WIM classes 8–10) heavy-duty trucks, though recently improving. These results are consistent with the growth in residential deliveries owing to e-commerce, showing increased light-heavy-duty trucks flows concentrated closer to the consumption areas, and experiencing larger flow reductions compared to heavy vehicle flows as the distance from the area increases; and showing that medium-heavy-duty vehicles used in both full-truck-load, and less-than-truck-load vocations are prevalent throughout the study area, whereas there is a trade-off between light- and heavy-heavy duty trucks (WIM classes 11–13) at the proximity, and the outskirts of the consumption markets, respectively. Moreover, the study shows the usefulness of the WIM data in identifying spatial and temporal dynamics in freight demand, providing additional information for planning, maintenance, and rehabilitation of the infrastructure. More importantly, the results, coupled with other evidence from the literature, show how major disruptions such as the recession significantly affect truck traffic.

A Review on the Reliability, Performance and Utilization of Nigerian Petrochemical Industry

Nigeria established three petrochemical plants in Warri, Kaduna, and Eleme respectively, between the year 1988 and 1995. They were designed to produce feedstocks for the country’s plastics, rubber and detergent industries. The poor performance of the three state-owned plants and the unsuccessful outcomes of other proposed petrochemical plans discouraged the government from establishing new ones. This situation led to both losses in revenue and low capacity utilization. The Eleme petrochemical complex was later sold to Indorama, a private concern, which surprisingly turned around the fortunes of the plant within three years. This paper gives an in-depth insight into the present condition of the Nigeria petrochemical sector and examines the causes of the suboptimal performance of the state-owned petrochemical companies based on previous reviews. Finally, the cause and effect tool (Ishikawa or Fishbone diagram) summed up all highlighted factors under the seven M’s (Material, Method, Measurement, Manpower, Management, Machine and Mother Nature) umbrella.

The potential for economic impact of the KZN department of education infrastructure delivery programme

The purpose of this study was to look at the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Department of Education (DoE) infrastructure delivery programme in a bid to assess its potential impact on the economic growth of KZN. A mixed research approach was used to analyse existing data obtained through document review and semi-structured cross-sectional interview design with contractors to establish the link between their actions and elements of the GDP. The triangulated empirical findings suggest that KZN’s DOE infrastructure delivery programme has a low potential to impact economic growth. The practical implications include the low impact arising from no concerted efforts to align programmes to economic fundamentals and leakages arising from inefficiencies, red tape, low capacity utilisation of resources, the poor performance of agents, consultants, contractors and low staff productivity. Recommendations were further made on institutional reforms, policy enhancement and reduction of transactions costs in the value chain. The recommendations also serve as bases for future research implications necessary for sector transformation and sustainable construction in KZN.

The relationship between Competitive Strategy Drivers and Performance of manufacturing Small and Medium Enterprises in Nairobi County, Kenya

This study determines the influence of competitive strategy drivers on the performance of manufacturing SMEs in Nairobi County in Kenya. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are the backbone of many economies all over the world through creation of employment opportunities as well as wealth creation for entrepreneurs. Strong competitive strategy drivers offer advantage to SMEs to help them achieve good performance and remain competitive in their respective markets. The study was anchored on resource-based theory which provided a framework for examining the association between the research variables. For the methodology, a cross-sectional survey was done covering 334 manufacturing small and medium enterprises in Nairobi County, Kenya. Structured questionnaires were used for data collection with a response rate of 89.6%. Various descriptive statistics were used to project the demographic characteristics of the association and the respondents. Inferential statistics was used to assess up the connection between the factors and test the model. The results indicated that the three competitive strategy drivers of environmental based drivers, resource-based drivers and hybrid strategy drivers exhibited significant relationship with performance of the Manufacturing SMEs in Nairobi county. The study’s recommendations will be useful to management of manufacturing-sector SMEs in developing long term strategies to address constraints that could have led to low capacity utilization and productivity in the sector. Additionally, it may be used to guide policy formulations geared to support manufacturing SMEs operations. The researcher recommends similar research to be undertaken in other SMEs and also have more managers respond to the questionnaires in order to enrich the collected data.

Уверенность в будущем как фактор экономического развития

The level of confidence in the future is considered as one of the important characteristics of the quality of life. Social and economic well-being depends on what expectations prevail in a society. It is shown that the reduction of interest rates on loans is not a sufficient condition for overcoming investment pessimism. It is indicated that with low capacity utilization, cheap loans can lead to stagnation of industries, contributing to the preservation of the existing structure of used capacities. The quality of coordination of economic activity is considered as one of the factors of business confidence in the future. It is noted that the competitiveness of existing industries has a great impact on the formation of new industries in the economy. It is emphasized that the transition to the system of interactive strategic planning remains an urgent task for our country.

Metal–Organic Framework-Derived Nanoconfinements of CoF2 and Mixed-Conducting Wiring for High-Performance Metal Fluoride-Lithium Battery

Metal fluoride (MF) conversion cathodes theoretically show higher gravimetric and volumetric capacities than Ni- or Co-based intercalation oxide cathodes, which makes metal fluoride-lithium batteries promising candidates for next-generation high-energy-density batteries. However, their high-energy characteristics are clouded by low-capacity utilization, large voltage hysteresis, and poor cycling stability of transition MF cathodes. A variety of reasons is responsible for this: poor reaction kinetics, low conductivities, unstable MF/electrolyte interfaces and dissolution of active species upon cycling. Herein, we combine the synthesis of the metal-organic-framework (MOF) with the low-temperature fluorination to prepare MOF-shaped CoF2@C nanocomposites that exhibit confinement of the CoF2 nanoparticles and efficient mixed-conducting wiring in the produced architecture. The ultrasmall CoF2 nanoparticles (5-20 nm on average) are uniformly covered by graphitic carbon walls and embedded in the porous carbon framework. Within the CoF2@C nanocomposite, the cross-linked carbon wall and interconnected nanopores serve as electron- and ion-conducting pathways, respectively, enabling a highly reversible conversion reaction of CoF2. As a result, the produced CoF2@C composite cathodes successfully restrain the above-mentioned challenges and demonstrate high-capacity utilization of ∼500 mAh g-1 at 0.2C, good rate capability (up to 2C), and long-term cycle stability over 400 cycles. Overall, the presented study not only reports on a simple composite design to achieve high-energy characteristics in CoF2-Li batteries but also may provide a general solution for many other metal fluoride-lithium batteries.

Classification of Measures for Dealing with District Heating Load Variations—A Systematic Review

The highly varying character of district heating (DH) demand results in low capacity utilization of the DH plants, as well as increased use of fossil fuels during peak demand. The aim of this study is to present an overview and a comprehensive classification of measures intended to manage these load variations. A systematic literature review was conducted based on previously defined search strings as well as inclusion and exclusion criteria. Two scientific databases were used as data sources. Based on 96 detected publications, the measures were categorized as (1) complementing DH production in heat-only boilers (HOBs), or geothermal or booster heat pumps (HPs) (usually controlled by the DH company), (2) thermal energy (TE) storage in storage units or in the network (controlled by the company), and (3) demand side measures, which can be strategic demand increase, direct demand response (DR), or indirect DR. While the company has control over direct DR (e.g., thermal storage in the thermal mass of the buildings), indirect DR is based on communication between the customer and the company, where the customer has complete control. The multi-disciplinary nature of this topic requires an interdisciplinary approach.

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND THE CHALLENGE OF NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA: CHALLENGES AND PROSPECTS

Contemporary Nigeria is plagued with the problems of widespread poverty, large-scale unemployment, technological backwardness, low capacity utilization, inadequate and decayed social and physicalinfrastructure, high incidence of diseases, high crime rate, among others. These disturbing socio-economicindicators in Nigeria are among the worst in the world. Ironically, these unpleasant indicators exist side-byside the country’s great national wealth and potentials, with an enviable stock of human resources whopossess knowledge, expertise and skills especially in the public service. Unfortunately, it appears these knowledgeable public servants are unable to serve as catalysts in the development of the nation. This situation makes the Nigerian case paradoxical. The objective of this study therefore is to identify the challenges preventing Nigerian public administration from playing its catalyzing role in the development of the country as well as to proffer possible solutions. One of the findings is that bribery and corruption are a bane of Nigerian public administration. In fact, they constitute a serious impediment to national development. The paper recommends, inter alia, the empowering of the anti-corruption institutions and introduction of information and communication technology in public governance. The paper submits that the label of poor performance and absence of excellence in the public service has the tendency to undermine development and good governance in Nigeria.

Autonomous taxis & public health: High cost or high opportunity cost?

Passenger vehicles are a major source of air pollution, exposure to which increases respiratory disease risk, amplifies life-threatening conditions and burdens the public purse. The negative externalities associated with these vehicles rise further when road accidents are considered. Almost all such accidents involving fatalities transpire when private users are in single vehicle incidents or collide with each other. Though autonomous vehicle technology can mitigate these effects, widespread adoption and proliferation demands cost competitiveness with the status quo; namely, personally owned and operated, conventional vehicles. Here we show that this prospect may - in a commercially owned and operated enterprise – be unlikely. Causal factors of relevance include low capacity utilization rates and impracticable profit expectations. In a single ridership ‘autonomous taxi’ model, we find capacity utilization rates would need to improve from 52 percent to 100 percent and profits lowered by 37 percent (from 27 cents to 17 cents on a per-mile basis) for autonomous taxis to offer fares that are comparable with personally owned, conventional vehicles. In a multiple ridership model, the affordance of these fares requires a 30 percent increase in vehicle occupancy (from 1.67 to 2.2) and a 75 percent increase (1.67 to 2.92) were even lower fares offered to incentivize shared, autonomous taxi use over personally owned, conventional vehicles. We conclude that consideration of the opportunity costs of driving are integral to the widespread adoption of a technology that may dramatically improve public health outcomes.

Improving MRO order processing by means of advanced technological diagnostics and data mining approaches

Production planning based on uncertain load information may lead to low schedule adherence or low capacity utilization. Thus, maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) service providers are striving to improve their business processes to achieve high logistics efficiency. To estimate repair expenditures and material demands as early as possible, different approaches may be pursued. In this paper, the advancement of technological diagnostics to enable condition assessment without prior disassembly and the use of data mining to generate reliable forecasts are discussed. Thereby, the potential for planning MRO order processing is focused using the example of aircraft engines and rail vehicle transformers.

A low-defect and Na-enriched Prussian blue lattice with ultralong cycle life for sodium-ion battery cathode

Prussian blue compounds have been considered as attractive candidate cathodes for sodium ion battery (SIB) due to open channel structure, tunable chemical compositions and potential high capacity. However, their low capacity utilization and insufficient cyclability have hindered their large-scale applications. In this work, a series of Na-enrich PB lattices (NaxFe[Fe(CN)6]1-y · zH2O) with different contents of [Fe(CN)6] vacancies and coordinated water are synthesized to investigate the effects of the lattice defects on the reversible capacities and cycling stabilities of the PB materials. It is found that decreasing the content of structural defects can greatly elevate the electrochemical performance of the PB cathodes. The as prepared low-defect and Na+-enriched Na1.81Fe[Fe(CN)6]0.83 · 2.04H2O lattice can achieve a high reversible capacity of >140 mAh g−1, a superior rate capability with 55.2% of its initial capacity at 10 C and a long-term cyclability with 78% capacity retention over 3700 cycles, possibly serving as a low cost, high capacity and cycle-stable cathode for Na ion batteries.

Lost in Deflation: Why Italy’s Woes Are a Warning to the Whole Eurozone

Using macroeconomic data for 1960–2018, this article analyzes the origins of the crisis of the “post-Maastricht Treaty order of Italian capitalism.” After 1992, Italy did more than most other Eurozone members to satisfy EMU conditions in terms of self-imposed fiscal consolidation, structural reform, and real wage restraint—and the country was undeniably successful in bringing down inflation, moderating wages, running primary fiscal surpluses, reducing unemployment, and raising the profit share. But its adherence to the EMU rulebook asphyxiated Italy’s domestic demand and exports—and resulted not just in economic stagnation and a generalized productivity slowdown but in relative and absolute decline in many major dimensions of economic activity. Italy’s chronic shortage of demand has clear sources: (1) perpetual fiscal austerity; (2) permanent real wage restraint; and (3) a lack of technological competitiveness, which in combination with an overvalued euro weakens the ability of Italian firms to maintain their global market shares in the face of increasing competition of low-wage countries. These three causes lower capacity utilization; reduce firm profitability; and hurt investment, innovation, and diversification. The EMU rulebook thus locks the Italian economy into economic decline and impoverishment. The analysis points to the need to end austerity and devise public investment and industrial policies to improve Italy’s “technological competitiveness” and stop the structural divergence between the Italian economy and that of France/Germany. The issue is not just to revive demand in the short run (which is easy) but to create a self-reinforcing process of investment-led and innovation-driven process of long-run growth (which is difficult).

Achieving long-life Prussian blue analogue cathode for Na-ion batteries via triple-cation lattice substitution and coordinated water capture

Prussian blue and its analogues have attracted tremendous interests as cathode materials for sodium ion batteries because of their low cost and high capacity. However, their commercial applications are hindered by low capacity utilization and insufficient cycle life. Here, we report on a MnCoNi-co-doped Prussian blue analogue with high purity and crystallinity by a citrate-assisted controlled crystallization process. Moreover, a novel strategy of in situ capturing for residual coordinated water during sodiation/desodiation process is proposed to achieve a high cyclability by using the aluminium chloride Lewis acid as electrolyte additive. The reversible cubic-rhombohedral phase transition is revealed by in situ X-ray diffraction, ex situ X-ray absorption spectroscopy and transient electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The MnCoNi-co-doped composite delivers a capacity of 111 mAh g−1 even at 1C and retains a capacity retention of 78.7% after 1500 cycles for sodium ion batteries. This work provides important insights on eliminating the parasitical coordinated water in lattice and modulating the crystallinity to develop high-performance Prussian blue and its analogues.

Wage Growth Puzzle and Capacity Utilization

Wage growth and consumer price inflation in the United States remain weak, despite robust labor market and a healthy economy. This has been a conundrum for policymakers and economists alike, albeit it is not without parallels. In this paper, we analyze recent trends in the labor market. We point out that a number of indicators are providing mixed signals about the tight labor market, including wage growth that has remained muted, vacancy duration rates that have stayed remarkable stable in certain sectors, and the rate of capacity utilization, which is cyclically low and out of sync with other measures of resource utilization (e.g., output gap and unemployment rate). This leads us to conclude that there could be other forces that explain these phenomena. In this paper, we focus on capacity utilization and contend that low capacity utilization rates are the outcome of strategic decision-making by corporations, rather than inefficient demand, which permits firms to manage their resources more effectively. It seems to be particularly important when economic and policy uncertainties are elevated, such as in the post-financial crisis environment. More flexible use of capacity has implications not only for the labor market, but also for investments. Understanding capacity utilization would contribute to monetary policy formulation when the signal coming from the rate of capacity utilization is not consistent with those coming from the labor market and the output gap. This points to the need to continue monitor a broad range of indicators to avoid potential policy errors.