Strict Limits Research Articles

Evaluation of toxicological metal profiling in different varieties of candies from the local market of Lucknow City, India

Virtually almost everyone enjoys chocolates and candies every now and then. Usually, chocolate and candies are the most craved food among children and pregnant women. This craving kicks high during the phase of stress, anxiousness, hormonal changes or mood swings. As children and pregnant women are the most sensitive groups of human population, the presence of any kind of toxicants in their food products can raise serious health concerns. In view of this, an approach has been made to estimate the quantity of nine metals in three different variety of commonly available candies (67 samples) i.e., cocoa-chocolate based, milk based, and fruit flavored candies. Few metals were found at relatively high level in cocoa-chocolate based candies followed by milk based and fruit flavored candies. The findings of this study enlightens the international food safety and public health protection authorities to implement strict permissible limits for the presence of metals in candies. The statistical approach of m­­­ultiple discriminant analysis was also performed in this study to reverse identify the candy groups based on their inter-comparative profiling of multi-elemental contamination among similar type of candy samples which points towards stipulating stringent quality policies and establishing strict standards for manufacturing, processing, storage and transportation of candies and their raw materials.

Yes Bank: A Saga of Corporate Governance Conundrum

India’s fifth largest private sector moneylender, YES Bank, was put on moratorium on 5th March, 2020. It was in the midst of a crisis as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had taken over its affairs and placed strict limits on its operations. Such a value deterioration because of governance failure and the consequent erosion of investors trust or confidence shows that corporate governance standards remain weak in India and calls for immediate renovation. The present study attempts to review corporate governance reforms in India through a survey of existing research, identifying issues which are not being sufficiently addressed in the existing corporate governance framework of Yes Bank and exemplify the key takeaways to prevent such instances in the future. Lastly, the study suggests some suitable measures to draw the attention of concerned authorities in order to make corporate governance reforms more effective in India.

Modelling a virtual wind tunnel for vehicle aerodynamic measurements

The automotive makes of our days are challenged to fulfil more and more criteria to remain competitive and financially performant, considering the legislation that must be respected to be able to commercialise each model. One highly important set of rules focus on emissions and strict limits are implemented. To develop compliant products, each make must focus on aerodynamic performance so to reduce the drag of air, thus the required force to overcome for movement at high speeds. While homologation is currently done exclusively as a physical test, to be able to reduce the aerodynamic coefficient, strong virtual tools are used. These measurements performed with computation fluid dynamic software are translated into a virtual wind tunnel that must be able to give relevant and coherent results in respect to final physical validations. The paper will indicate the main types of wind tunnels, parameters to consider, error source and how results can be used. While the computational power is growing each moment, the industry is continuously adapting to obtain the most performant and appealing designs with minimal resources, this being the key of reducing the CO2 footprint of passenger vehicles transport segment.

Optimization of a Suspension of a Micromechanical Accelerometer in an Angular Velocity Measurement Unit

Optimization of the suspension of the micromechanical accelerometer, which is a part of an angular velocity measurement unit, was considered. This problem was faced because of the need to improve the design of the existing device to meet new technical requirements. Shock loads up to 1 000 g exceed ultimate loads for micromechanical accelerometers by several orders of magnitude. During the study, it turned out that the measurement unit shell works as a resonator, so the shock loads on the micromechanical accelerometer can even exceed 1 000g. In this case, suspensions of the micromechanical accelerometer are deformed in the plane of the accelerometer, which causes their destruction. The solution to this problem was hampered by the strict limits on the overall dimensions of the device. The existing shock dampers that could absorb such shock loads simply did not fit into the attachment points. Therefore, an original spring was designed and manufactured for this purpose. At the final stage, an additional system of passive heat outlets from the accelerometer to the device shell was designed and installed.

Boosting Photon-Efficient Image Reconstruction With A Unified Deep Neural Network.

Photon-efficient imaging, which captures 3D images with single-photon sensors, has enabled a wide range of applications. However, two major challenges limit the reconstruction performance, i.e., the low photon counts accompanied by low signal-to-background ratio (SBR) and the multiple returns. In this paper, we propose a unified deep neural network that, for the first time, explicitly addresses these two challenges, and simultaneously recovers depth maps and intensity images from photon-efficient measurements. Starting from a general image formation model, our network is constituted of one encoder, where a non-local block is utilized to exploit the long-range correlations in both spatial and temporal dimensions of the raw measurement, and two decoders, which are designed to recover depth and intensity, respectively. Meanwhile, we investigate the statistics of the background noise photons and propose a noise prior block to further improve the reconstruction performance. The proposed network achieves decent reconstruction fidelity even under extremely low photon counts / SBR and heavy blur caused by the multiple-return effect, which significantly surpasses the existing methods. Moreover, our network trained on simulated data generalizes well to real-world imaging systems, which greatly extends the application scope of photon-efficient imaging in challenging scenarios with a strict limit on optical flux. Code is available at https://github.com/JiayongO-O/PENonLocal.

The expanding backlog of mental health patients and the continued toll of zero-COVID policy on healthcare settings

Aim and Scope: Prior research has shown that isolation measures implemented to contain previous pandemics had led to negative impacts on mental health. There has been increased awareness of mental health issues over the past few years with more patients encouraged to seek help. Nevertheless, operational restrictions imposed on the health services to contain COVID-19 have resulted in reduced capacity in the health service. We have aimed to measure the combined effects of increased demand and reduction in capacity on the backlog of patients awaiting access to specialist care in Scotland. Design: To quantify the effect that the present pandemic has had on access to specialist care, comprehensive data on referrals by general practitioners (GPs) for specialist mental health support was obtained for 2016-2020 period following Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to all 14 health boards of National Health Service (NHS) Scotland. Results: Monthly GP referral counts accumulated across all health boards revealed the extent of demand for specialist mental health support. Prior to the pandemic there was a 4-5% annual rise in the number of mental health related GP referrals in Scotland. Pandemic related restrictions imposed to curb infections has led to a higher incidence of mental health problems. However, there was a 27% drop in referrals in 2020 alone, affecting an estimated 43,522 patients. The reduction on mental health provisions is similar in profile to the drop in number of planned hospital admissions. Conclusions: Policies to combat COVID-19 resulted in significant negative impacts on the mental health of the population. The continued restrictions on healthcare settings limit their operations, resulting in long waiting lists for accessing specialist care. Despite some easing for restrictions on public, restrictions on healthcare settings place strict limits on their operations and therefore are detrimental to public health.

Optimization design of marine seawater desulfurization technology

Because ships burn inferior fuel, the emission of ship exhaust gas has a great impact on the environment. In order to effectively deal with the increasingly strict limit of sulfur content and SO2 emission of ship fuel by the International Maritime Organization. On the basis of analyzing the characteristics of SO2 gas soluble in seawater, this paper studies and compares the current industrial seawater desulphurization technology and other flue gas desulfurization technologies, puts forward the feasibility of the application of seawater desulphurization technology in the exhaust gas emission of marine diesel engine, and theoretically designs and calculates seawater desulphurization technology is pointed out.

Низкоуглеродное развитие экономики как фактор сдерживания развития мировой и российской угольной промышленности Часть I. Влияние угольной отрасли на эмиссию парниковых газов и ее зависимость от современной климатической «повестки»

Russia, having joined the Paris climate agreement, has committed itself to reduce CO2 emissions by 30% by 2030 and up to 70% by 2050. Many countries in the world have developed and adopted appropriate programs for low-carbon development of the economy, which has a significant impact on production and consumption of coal in the world. In the medium and long term, in line with plans to decarbonize the economy, as well as the need to comply with the Paris climate agreement, coal consumption in the main countries of the world will fall. Environmental measures, approved and adopted by many countries of the world, provide for strict limits on greenhouse gas emissions, and if they are exceeded, huge penalties. Russian coal exporters hope to increase coal deliveries to the Asia-Pacific countries. However, Western sanctions, environmental restrictions, and carbon pricing could undermine these prospects.

Modern trends in regulation of the social practice of artificial termination of pregnancy in Volgograd Region (sociological aspect)

The subject of this research is the key trends in regulation of the social practice of artificial termination of pregnancy (abortion) in modern society. The article provides a theoretical analysis of the question, an overview of normative legal documents of various levels, as well as the results of in-depth interviews with the representatives of organizations of Volgograd Region dealing with prevention of abortions (2021). Description is given to such forms of countering abortions as information awareness of the population about contraceptives and promotion of healthy lifestyle, family values, and pre-abortion counseling, which implies that women must apply to medical institution for termination of pregnancy. The author highlights the merits, flaws and prospects of each of these methods. The conclusion is made that there are currently two vectors in regulation of the spread of social practice of artificial termination of pregnancy – prior to pregnancy or after. The latter, which consists in pre-abortion counseling, is most advanced. However, the modern trend towards minimization and the strict limit of the number of children in family, as well as the emergence of medical-induced abortion that allows a woman to do the procedure at home, make this direction ineffective. A less advances, but more promising trend is preventive work with the individuals long before pregnancy, the forms of which require expansion, systematization and elaboration. The author's contribution lies in outlining the prospects for further application of the listed forms and determining the problematic aspects in the development of each one. The acquired conclusions can be used by state and municipal authorities in terms of elaboration and implementation of the regional demographic programs, as well as implementation of the concepts of demographic and youth policy of the Russian Federation.

Tuning successive linear programming to solve AC optimal power flow problem for large networks

Successive linear programming (SLP) is a practical approach for solving large-scale nonlinear optimization problems. Alternating current optimal power flow (ACOPF) is no exception, particularly the large size of real-world networks. However, in order to achieve tractability, it is essential to tune the SLP algorithm presented in the literature. This paper presents a modified SLP algorithm to solve the ACOPF problem, specified by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Grid Optimization (GO) Competition Challenge 1, within strict time limits. The algorithm first finds a near-optimal solution for the relaxed problem (i.e., Stage 1). Then, it finds a feasible solution in the proximity of the near-optimal solution (i.e., Stage 2 and Stage 3). The numerical experiments on test cases ranging from 500-bus to 30,000-bus systems show that the algorithm is tractable. The results show that our proposed algorithm is tractable and can solve more than 80% of test cases faster than the well-known Interior Point Method while significantly reduce the number of iterations required to solve ACOPF. The number of iterations is considered an important factor in the examination of tractability which can drastically reduce the computational time required within each iteration.

Handheld Device for Selective Benzene Sensing over Toluene and Xylene.

More than 1 million workers are exposed routinely to carcinogenic benzene, contained in various consumer products (e.g., gasoline, rubbers, and dyes) and released from combustion of organics (e.g., tobacco). Despite strict limits (e.g., 50 parts per billion (ppb) in the European Union), routine monitoring of benzene is rarely done since low‐cost sensors lack accuracy. This work presents a compact, battery‐driven device that detects benzene in gas mixtures with unprecedented selectivity (>200) over inorganics, ketones, aldehydes, alcohols, and even challenging toluene and xylene. This can be attributed to strong Lewis acid sites on a packed bed of catalytic WO3 nanoparticles that prescreen a chemoresistive Pd/SnO2 sensor. That way, benzene is detected down to 13 ppb with superior robustness to relative humidity (RH, 10–80%), fulfilling the strictest legal limits. As proof of concept, benzene is quantified in indoor air in good agreement (R 2 ≥ 0.94) with mass spectrometry. This device is readily applicable for personal exposure assessment and can assist the implementation of low‐emission zones for sustainable environments.

Regulating and representing camming: Strict limits on acceptable content on webcam sex platforms

This article analyses the discursive construction of the limits of webcamming in terms of service agreements by BongaCams, LiveJasmin and Chaturbate, three of the world’s most popular webcam sex platforms. Through this analysis, the moderation practices in the webcamming industry are examined. Regulation of sexual platforms and its implications for representations of online sex work are still largely unclear. Through a critical discourse analysis of seven webcam platform terms of service documents, this article scrutinises the norms for camming as dictated by industry leading platforms. This analysis shows that these platforms, for legal and financial reasons, reject the idea of camming as sexually explicit or as (sex) work. Such a construction of camming limits sexual expression online, obstructs online sex workers’ labour rights and perpetuates sex work stigma. This article sheds light on how digital platforms can establish and maintain norms which regulate users’ online expressions, working conditions and representations.

Identification of Public Green Open Space in The Merdeka Square Area of Binjai City: Social Reality Architecture

Urban Green Open Space has important benefits for the lives of its residents. However, the problem that often arises is that there are many green open spaces in the city only as spaces that are responsive to the climate, environment, and as noise absorbers. Even though its existence is more than that, Green Open Space should also be able to fulfill the social activities of city dwellers in interacting, communicating and other social realities to create positive mental growth for fellow city residents. Architecture can be used as a vehicle to make a place not only a visual use but also can be a benefit for human life in the quality of its social reality. Therefore, research activities are needed by observing the relationship between Green Open Space and social activities of the city community as users to find the identity of the place so that the character is seen as the cause of the place to exist. The research was conducted by adopting a qualitative method that was translated descriptively at certain times in a factual manner so that the audience got a clear picture of the social reality that occurred. The results of the study explain that the pattern of activities that occur interactively on the character of the place provided contextually is intended for teenage visitors. There is no strict place limit between adolescent habitus social activities, this is a stereotype of the arena, capital, and power of adolescents who tend to be free.

Current views on the management of congenital dislocation of the knee based on current data on the outcomes of orthopedic treatment in these patients

Despite the rapid progress in medicine, today there is no clear protocol for the management of patients with such a rare disease as congenital dislocation of the knee (CDK). Analysis of the data shows that in the main percentage of cases, after ineffective conservative treatment, patients undergo late surgical intervention, which entails great number of complications and does not improve outcomes. This trend is associated with the lack of strict time limits for the start of medical care due to the lack of guidelines regulating the work.
 Aim of the study was study modern approaches to conservative and surgical treatment of patients with congenital dislocation of the knee based on a systematic analysis of the literature.
 Systematic analysis of literature sources on databases PubMed, Scopus, eLibrary, CyberLeninka, bibliography of key articles.
 Preparing the preliminary plan of correction and early initiation of treatment of congenital dislocation of the knee significantly increases the rate of positive outcomes of this disease. It is worth noting that using a less invasive approach to initiating treatment of congenital dislocation of the knee avoids a number of complications. Based not only on the classification of the stage of the severity, but also on the degree of contracture of the quadriceps muscle, it is possible to determine the possibilities of restoring the work of the joint, which proves the need to improve the knowledge gained.
 There is a need to organize the provision of medical care to patients with congenital dislocation of the knee on the basis of improved classifications that correspond to modern ideas about the outcomes of orthopedic treatment in patients with CDK.

Mandatory Mediation before Litigation in Civil and Commercial Matters: A European Perspective

Nowhere in Europe are disputants forced to settle their civil or commercial disputes by way of mediation or any other form of alternative dispute resolution. Settlement is also completely voluntary in light of the fundamental right of access to court of Art. 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights. This does not, however, mean that potential disputants may not be requested to attempt to settle their case before going to court, for example, by way of mediation, especially if strict time limits are observed for such procedure. In some European jurisdictions, attempting mediation or other forms of alternative dispute resolution before court action is initiated is mandatory, at least in certain cases. The present contribution will focus on such preliminary mandatory mediation attempts in a selection of jurisdictions.

All-sky search for continuous gravitational waves from isolated neutron stars in the early O3 LIGO data

We report on an all-sky search for continuous gravitational waves in the frequency band 20-2000\,Hz and with a frequency time derivative in the range of $[-1.0, +0.1]\times10^{-8}$\,Hz/s. Such a signal could be produced by a nearby, spinning and slightly non-axisymmetric isolated neutron star in our galaxy. This search uses the LIGO data from the first six months of Advanced LIGO's and Advanced Virgo's third observational run, O3. No periodic gravitational wave signals are observed, and 95\%\ confidence-level (CL) frequentist upper limits are placed on their strengths. The lowest upper limits on worst-case (linearly polarized) strain amplitude $h_0$ are $~1.7\times10^{-25}$ near 200\,Hz. For a circularly polarized source (most favorable orientation), the lowest upper limits are $\sim6.3\times10^{-26}$. These strict frequentist upper limits refer to all sky locations and the entire range of frequency derivative values. For a population-averaged ensemble of sky locations and stellar orientations, the lowest 95\%\ CL upper limits on the strain amplitude are $\sim1.\times10^{-25}$. These upper limits improve upon our previously published all-sky results, with the greatest improvement (factor of $\sim$2) seen at higher frequencies, in part because quantum squeezing has dramatically improved the detector noise level relative to the second observational run, O2. These limits are the most constraining to date over most of the parameter space searched.

Imperfection Tolerances During the Erection of Steel Plate Girders and Geometrical Nonlinearities

This work aims to prove that the strict initial imperfection tolerance limits proposed by the American AWS D1.1/D1.1M and the European EN 1090-2 codes could be relaxed for the webs of the most encountered steel I-plate girders subjected to local bend-buckling during their erection phase. To achieve this scope, a parametric study was done involving 36 perfect and 612 imperfect web models with varying aspect ratio, slenderness ratio, initial imperfection amplitude, and stress ratio using Abaqus/CAE by Finite Element (FE) linear buckling analyses then FE geometrically and materially nonlinear analyses with imperfections included (GMNIA). After investigating the results, two main research novelties were found. An easily applicable equation to determine the ultimate strength of webs subjected to direct stresses, which is a function of not only the slenderness ratio and stress ratio (as in other research) but also a function of the initial imperfection amplitude, was derived. Secondly, a tolerance limit equation that is a function of not only the slenderness ratio but also the stress ratio, thus considering the symmetry of the section of plate girders, has been derived. The derived tolerance limit equation provides acceptable and inclusive parameter-wise imperfection tolerances for webs of plate girders so as to relax strict and costly tolerance limits. The results obtained show that for monosymmetric I-plate girders during erection, EN 1090-2 and AWS D1.1/D1.1M tolerance limits can be relaxed to around 40% and 80% in less slender webs and close to 60% and 200% in more slender webs, respectively.

Revealing drivers and risks for power grid frequency stability with explainable AI

SummaryStable operation of an electric power system requires strict operational limits for the grid frequency. Fluctuations and external impacts can cause large frequency deviations and increased control efforts. Although these complex interdependencies can be modeled using machine learning algorithms, the black box character of many models limits insights and applicability. In this article, we introduce an explainable machine learning model that accurately predicts frequency stability indicators for three European synchronous areas. Using Shapley additive explanations, we identify key features and risk factors for frequency stability. We show how load and generation ramps determine frequency gradients, and we identify three classes of generation technologies with converse impacts. Control efforts vary strongly depending on the grid and time of day and are driven by ramps as well as electricity prices. Notably, renewable power generation is central only in the British grid, while forecasting errors play a major role in the Nordic grid.

Repairing Our System of Constitutional Accountability: Reflections on the 150th Anniversary of Section 1983

Section 1983 is a landmark statute that provides the foundation for holding state and local governments and their agents accountable when they violate constitutional rights. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court’s interpretation of this statute is a glaring exception to the rule that courts should enforce the plain language of Congress’s statutory commands. Rather than enforce the statute’s text and ensure the accountability that its drafters passed it to achieve, the Supreme Court has created four interlocking doctrines that squelch its promise of accountability: qualified immunity, absolute immunity, strict limits on local governmental liability, and the exclusion of states from Section 1983. This Essay, written to mark the 150th anniversary of Section 1983, does a deep dive into the text and history of Section 1983 and recovers a critical part of the story of its enactment that is all too often ignored: Congress made a conscious choice not to provide any official immunities because it did not want to place state officials above the law. Indeed, Congress passed Section 1983 to ensure that governments and their agents could be held accountable in a court of law. By gutting Section 1983 through rank judicial legislation, the Supreme Court has let states and local governments and their agents violate our most cherished constitutional rights with impunity and left those victimized by abuse of power without any remedy.

Modelling the effects of emission control areas on shipping company operations and environmental consequences

In this study, two integrated game models are developed to explore the possible economic and environmental consequences of Emission control areas (ECA) regulations. Moreover, the analytical solutions compared with a benchmark case are derived. We find that vessel speed and SO2 emissions will decrease under the ECA regulations. However, shipping company’s level of competition has no effect on the equivalent speed. The equivalent freight volume to be reduced or increased is determined by the additional operational cost per voyage due to ECA regulations. Numerical study and sensitivity analysis reveal that the vessel speed and SO2 emission reduction are very sensitive to the inventory costs of in-transit cargo. Furthermore, if low-sulphur marine gas oil is used throughout the voyage, the SO2 emission reduction may be greater than 80%, with a low impact on the shipping company’s profit. Thus, considering the environmental effects, much stricter limits can be set in the future.