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Abstract Background The profound impact of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has led to an increased demand for sustainable pandemic governance practices. This study explored emerging hybrid governance practices that provide robust evidence on how to address the complex challenges of pandemics effectively. South Korea, which was severely affected by COVID-19, has implemented a novel governance approach using a whole-of-nation (WoN) model. This hybrid pandemic governance approach, which integrates both whole-of-government and whole-of-society approaches, has enabled synergistic and cohesive multi-sectoral coordination among all stakeholders (public authorities, private enterprises, and civil society) to address multifaceted challenges collectively and strengthen their resilience capacity. This study investigated South Korea’s WoN practices and their embedded context and identified key governance enablers facilitating this approach. Methods This study employed a case study design based on an extensive analysis of policy and program documents, drawing on South Korea’s publicly available data from January 1, 2020 to March 30, 2023. It assessed six system-level collaborative pandemic governance practices and key enablers, all of which were intended to fortify the country’s pandemic response. Results The primary areas of the country’s WoN governance practices for COVID-19 control were (i) whole-of-government policy-making and response, (ii) COVID-19 testing system, (iii) digital surveillance of COVID-19, (iv) COVID-19 triage and treatment system, (v) domestic vaccine production, and (vi) community engagement. Key governance enablers for implementing the WoN model were establishing a legal foundation, ensuring decisive and strong governance and leadership, increasing public investment, applying a whole-of-health approach with augmented investment in public health, enhancing crisis communication, and mobilizing local leaders and civil society organizations in the national public health response. Conclusions In exploring innovative approaches to pandemic governance for increased efficacy, responsiveness, and impact, the WoN approach emerged as highly relevant. This example of emerging practice allows policy-makers to re-evaluate their governance strategies and initiatives to improve multi-agency partnerships across the country in their pandemic-preparedness planning.

Background: The profound impact of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has led to an increased demand for sustainable pandemic governance practices. This study explored emerging hybrid governance practices that provide robust evidence on how to address the complex challenges of pandemics effectively. South Korea, which was severely affected by COVID-19, has implemented a novel governance approach using a whole-of-nation (WoN) model. This hybrid pandemic governance approach, which integrates both whole-of-government and whole-of-society approaches, has enabled synergistic and cohesive multi-sectoral coordination among all stakeholders (public authorities, private enterprises, and civil society) to address multifaceted challenges collectively and strengthen their resilience capacity. This study investigated South Korea's WoN practices and their embedded context and identified key governance enablers facilitating this approach. Methods: This study employed a case study design based on an extensive analysis of policy and program documents, drawing on South Korea's publicly available data from January 1, 2020 to March 30, 2023. It assessed six system-level collaborative pandemic governance practices and key enablers, all of which were intended to fortify the country's pandemic response. Results: The primary areas of the country's WoN governance practices for COVID-19 control were (i) whole-of-government policy-making and response, (ii) COVID-19 testing system, (iii) digital surveillance of COVID-19, (iv) COVID-19 triage and treatment system, (v) domestic vaccine production, and (vi) community engagement. Key governance enablers for implementing the WoN model were establishing a legal foundation, ensuring decisive and strong governance and leadership, increasing public investment, applying a whole-of-health approach with augmented investment in public health, enhancing crisis communication, and mobilizing local leaders and civil society organizations in the national public health response. Conclusions: In exploring innovative approaches to pandemic governance for increased efficacy, responsiveness, and impact, the WoN approach emerged as highly relevant. This example of emerging practice allows policy-makers to re-evaluate their governance strategies and initiatives to improve multi-agency partnerships across the country in their pandemic-preparedness planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Automatisierungstechnik is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

At present, the manufacturer collaborates on selling and recycling through an online platform. We explores the mode selection of closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) under the reselling or agency modes in forward SC and under the delegated-recycling mode or agency-recycling mode in reverse SC considering data intelligence level with an online platform. The results show that both the retail price of intelligent connected products (ICPs) and the demand of new ICPs are positively correlated with data intelligence level of new ICPs. The recycling price of old ICPs is negatively relevant to data intelligence level of old ICPs. However, the recycling quantity of old ICPs is positively related to data intelligence level of old ICPs. Increasing data intelligence level of new ICPs is benefit to enterprises. Moreover, it is very unconventional that the demand of new ICPs is increasing when the retail price of new ICPs increases. In addition, the manufacturer can choose the optimal selling mode and recycling mode by setting the selling commission rate and the recycling commission rate.

A SoS is a set of collaborating systems that act towards a common achievement. Risk assessment is important in the early stages of SoS operational development, both for mission objectives and to enable technology which is developed responsibly. The method considers risks that stems from both internal and external interactions which leads to losses for different kind of actors. The method has been applied to a fictional case study of wildfire fighting. The internal interactions are mostly communication between the CSs while external interactions represent dependencies of other systems as well as impacts on other systems. The outcome of the methodology is a network of connected hazards to be used for risk management and for high level SoS requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Liquid water is sometimes found exhausted from the anode exit of an air-cooled proton exchange membrane fuel cell (ACFC) even if dry hydrogen is input as fuel while its utilization rate is kept constant, i.e., having the forced convection of H 2 in the anode. The anode liquid water accumulation may block the hydrogen into the anode catalyst layer (CL). However, no research has been dedicated to how the ACFC anode flooding appears, extends and intensifies under different operating conditions. In this research, a computational fluid dynamics model of ACFC proves the existence of anode two-phase flow based on some air stoichiometry, operating current density and relative air humidity (ARH). The results show that when the current density is increased to a high level of 840 mA cm−2, even though the air stoichiometric ratio (ASR) is set as the medium level of 150, the water flooding can cover two-thirds of the anode interface; as both the ARH and the current density increase to high levels of 90% and 700 mA cm−2, heavy flooding appears across the entire anode interface and the average liquid saturation is beyond 7 × 10−2. Finally, incorporating ARH and current density as the independent parameters and ASR as the dependent parameter, a rough operational strategy for ACFCs is put forward for the first time to try to avoid internal low or high humidity to stabilize the performance. • The transport characteristics of the anode two-phase flow of an ACFC are analyzed. • Elevated air stoichiometry and air relative humidity exacerbate anode flooding. • Higher current density leads to the anode flooding due to more generated water. • A rough operational strategy for ACFCs is put forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Integrated Intelligent Energy is the property of Editorial Department of Integrated Intelligent Energy and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

With the increase in application of solar PV systems, it is of great significance to develop and investigate direct current (DC)-powered equipment in buildings with flexible operational strategies. A promising piece of building equipment integrated in PV-powered buildings, DC inverter heat pump systems often operate with strategies either focused on the power supply side or on the building demand side. In this regard, the aim of this study was to investigate the operational strategy of a DC inverter heat pump system for application in an office building with a PV power system. Firstly, the PV power fluctuation and demand-side load characteristics were analyzed. Then, a series of heat transfer and heat pump system models were developed. A reference building model was developed for simulating the performance of the system. A control logic of the DC inverter heat pump was proposed with a certain level of flexibility and capability considering both the characteristics of the PV power generation and the demand-side heating load. MATLAB/Simulink 2021 software was used for simulation. The simulation results show that the DC inverter heat pump is able to regulate its own power according to the change signal of the bus voltage such that the DC distribution network can achieve power balance and thus provide enough energy for a room. This study can provide a reference for developing flexible operational strategies for DC inverter heat pump systems. The proposed strategy can also help to improve the systems' performance when they are applied in buildings with distributed PV systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hydrogen plays an important role in a sustainable future global energy system. An interesting technology for generating renewable hydrogen is splitting of water via concentrated solar power by thermochemical two-step redox cycles. This technology has a much higher potential solar-to-fuel efficiency compared to photovoltaics with subsequent electrolysis. Here we present new results on the optimization of the operational process strategy of a large-scale 250 kW pilot plant consisting of a fixed bed reactor using ceria as reactive material. The considered tuning parameters are chosen as essential process parameters: operation temperatures within the two steps, corresponding fluid flows, as well as switching times within the two steps. Design limitations of employed materials and components are taken into account within the optimization; thus, the obtained results can be validated in practice. For the optimization it is employed a complex physical system model with more than 3500 states, which has been validated before by two measurement campaigns. Regarding reduction temperatures between 1400–1700 ∘ C the maximum efficiency is determined with up to 5.6%, using optimal operational parameters within a temperature swing strategy. Additionally, some economic considerations are given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the era of user segmentation, college students are the backbone of the future, and their knowledge of earthquake prevention and disaster reduction plays an important role in improving the awareness of earthquake prevention and disaster reduction as well as emergency avoidance ability of the whole society. Therefore, how to attract attention and study of college students in the popularization process of earthquake prevention and disaster reduction, especially with the advent of the new media era, how to use the official new media platform to popularize the knowledge of earthquake prevention and disaster reduction to local college students, is an urgent problem to be solved by the earthquake departments. Based on online questionnaire survey, this study investigates the use of mobile phones and the demand for popular science services for earthquake prevention and disaster reduction among students in Inner Mongolia Technical College of Construction, with long use time, typical use scenarios and diversified mobile phone uses, college students mainly accept popular science knowledge for earthquake prevention and disaster reduction through new media platforms, prefer popular science works such as animation and short videos, desire to obtain earthquake knowledge related to application and foundation most, and show great differences in acceptance of existing popular science content for earthquakes in the market. In view of this, this paper mainly analyzes the operation strategy of four new media platforms：official Weibo, WeChat, Jinritoutiao and Douyin, from four aspects, such as release time limit, release form, release content and platform promotion, with a view to improving the effect of popular science dissemination on earthquake prevention and disaster reduction.

The number of Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles (FCEVs) in circulation has undergone a significant increase in recent years. This trend is foreseen to be stronger in the near future. In correlation with the FCEVs market increase, the hydrogen delivery infrastructure must be developed. With this aim, many countries have announced ambitious projects. For example, Spain has the objective of increasing the number of Hydrogen Refuelling Stations (HRS) with public access from three units in operation currently to about 150 by 2030. HRSs are complex systems with high variability in terms of layout design, size of components, operational strategy, hydrogen generation method or hydrogen generation location. This paper is focused on on-site HRS with electrolysis-based hydrogen production, which provides interesting advantages when renewable energy is utilized compared to off-site hydrogen production despite their complexity. To optimize HRS design and operation, a simulation model must be implemented. This paper describes a generic on-site HRS with electrolysis-based hydrogen production, a cascaded multi-tank storage system with multiple compressors, renewable energy sources, and multiple types of dispensing formats. A modelling approach of the layout is presented and tested with real-based parameters of an HRS currently under development, which is capable of producing 11.34 kg/h of green H 2 with irradiation at 1000 W/m2. For the operation, an operational strategy is proposed. The modelled system is tested through several simulations. A sensitivity analysis of the effects of hydrogen demand and day-ahead hydrogen production objective on emissions, demand satisfaction and variable costs is performed. Simulation results show how the operational strategy has achieved service up to 310 FCEVs refuelling events of heavy duty and light duty FCEVs, bringing the total H 2 sold up to almost 7200 H2kg in one month of winter. Additionally, considering variable costs of the energy from the utility grid, the model shows a profit in the range of 21–50 k€ for a daily demand of 60 H2kg/day and 100 H2kg/day, respectively. In terms of emissions, a year simulation with 60 H2kg/day of demand shows specific emissions in the production of H 2 in Spain of 6.26 kgCO2eq/H2kg, which represents a greenhouse gas emission intensity of 52.26 gCO2eq/H2MJ. • Modelling approach of hydrogen refuelling station with on-site hydrogen production. • Operational strategy with day-ahead scheduled grid-connected hydrogen production. • Finite-state machine online control of a multi-tank and multi-compressor plant. • Sensitivity analysis of hydrogen demand magnitude and frequency. • A trade-off between demand satisfaction, profits and emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Pacha: Revista de Estudios Contemporáneos del Sur Global is the property of PACHA REVISTA DE ESTUDIOS CONTEMPORANEOS DEL SUR GLOBAL and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The successful introduction of battery electric trucks heavily depends on public charging infrastructure. But even as the first trucks capable of long-haul transportation are being built, no coherent fast-charging networks are yet available. This paper presents a methodology for assessing fast charging networks for electric trucks in Germany from the literature. It aims to establish a quantitative understanding of the networks' performance and robustness to deviations from idealized system parameters and identify crucial charging sites from a transportation planning perspective. Additionally, the study explores the quantification of adaptation effects displayed by agents in response to charging site outages. To achieve these objectives, a comprehensive methodology incorporating infrastructure, vehicle and operational strategy modeling, simulation, and subsequent evaluation is presented. Factors such as charging station locations, C-rates, mandatory rest periods, and vehicle parameters are taken into account, along with the distribution of traffic according to publicly available data. The study aims to offer a comprehensive understanding of charging networks' performance and resilience. This will be applied in a case study on two proposed networks and newly created derivatives. The proposed network offers over 99% coverage for long-haul transport but leads to a time loss of approximately 7% under reference conditions. This study advances the understanding of the performance and resilience of proposed charging networks, providing a solid foundation for the design and implementation of robust and efficient charging infrastructure for electric trucks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Progress in Earthquake Sciences is the property of China Earthquake Administration, Institute of Geophysics and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

A successful strategy is a well-defined long-term strategy, which leads the company to achieve its desired goals and along with it, predicting the expected slow changes in the environment and the opportunities created there. It also gives a chance to find a cost advantage. However, developing and implementing such a strategy in today's rapidly changing environment is associated with many challenges. Among them, one of the most important is the right choice of operational strategy and the compatibility of this strategy with the company's mission. However, if the mission is to tell the public about the company, what makes it similar to its competitors, the main challenge of the operations strategy is to distinguish the given company from competitors with the same mission. All operations, regardless of how correctly they are planned and controlled, always contain a certain potential for development, which does not require a radical change in the budget. It is the realization of such, seemingly insignificant, but numerous opportunities, in the final analysis, ensures the continuous development of the company's operational processes and systems, manufactured products and rendered services. Two important things happen at this time. The first is that all directions of the operational strategy, be it customer relationship management, measures to increase the company's productivity, or the design of innovations, are interrelated and, one might say, interdependent processes; Second, and more importantly, a key management challenge has shifted the planning of operational processes from a position of control to development. Unfortunately, in most national companies, there is no clear development strategy, let alone an operational strategy. And where a strategic development plan seems to exist, very little attention is paid to the challenges of the company's core operating function and to operational development in general. In order to find out what attention should be paid to operational development, we more than 100 managers of small and medium businesses were interviewed in Kutaisi and its surroundings. Analyzing the obtained results gave us the following picture: 36% of respondents have not even heard of a strategic development plan and, naturally, have no idea what operational strategy and operational development should mean; and of those who confirm that they are well aware of the importance of a strategic development plan, almost half (46% to be more precise) have not heard of such a need for the operational strategy of the main creator of such a plan. That is, in fact, 67% of the respondents have no idea even about the essence of operational strategy. It is even more problematic that 18% of the total number of respondents perceived "operative development" as a medical term. The Japanese call continuous development "Kaizen". It can be safely said that today "Kaizen" also represents a culture of successful company development. Although it refers to development in personal life, family and public activities, but when it comes to the company, "Kaizen" means continuous development with managers and hired staff. Shifting the emphasis to situational strategy indicates that not infrequently changes are so sudden that they overwhelm you, and focusing only on a pre-planned strategy does not guarantee success. Today, in fact, two main challenges of strategy formation face each other: focusing on anticipated changes and focusing on changes revealed over time. In our opinion, if today the strategy focused on expected changes, that is, pre-planned, still works well, tomorrow it can be said for sure that the balance will be tilted in favor of focusing on the changes revealed in the process of strategy implementation.

Abstract Large-scale ground source heat pump (GSHP) systems are increasingly used for space heating and cooling. In comparison with smaller ones, large GSHP systems are often coupled with much more borehole heat exchangers (BHEs). Because of the intense thermal interactions between BHEs, they are more susceptible to significant ground temperature changes. Meanwhile, they possess the advantage that their operational strategies can be applied with a high degree of freedom, which presents chances to alleviate intense thermal interactions. In this study, we used a new performance indicator to access the effectiveness of GSHP operational strategies on alleviating thermal anomalies. The Daxing Airport GSHP system, contains 10,497 BHEs and is the largest in the world; therefore, it was selected as the test case for performance enhancement through operational strategies. We established a 2D model to predict ground temperature changes during the 50-year operation of the BHEs. First, it was revealed that the most severe thermal anomalies in the study area mainly occurred both within and between the BHE arrays, which should be mitigated. To alleviate the thermal anomalies caused by the thermal interactions of BHEs, operational strategies were applied by adjusting the cooling/heating starting sequence, setting time-dependent thermal loads, and reallocating thermal loads according to the position of the BHEs. Our study demonstrates that only the operation strategy that adjusts the cooling/heating starting sequence is beneficial for different BHE layouts, while the operational strategy that reallocates the thermal loads depending on BHEs position may be only effective for specific BHE layouts. In addition, our new performance indicator can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the operational strategies and determine the spacing of adjacent BHE arrays. Therefore, it benefits the operation management of BHE array and design of BHE layout, and further guarantees the sustainable operation of the GSHP system.

Large-scale ground source heat pump (GSHP) systems are increasingly used for space heating and cooling. In comparison with smaller ones, large GSHP systems are often coupled with much more borehole heat exchangers (BHEs). Because of the intense thermal interactions between BHEs, they are more susceptible to significant ground temperature changes. Meanwhile, they possess the advantage that their operational strategies can be applied with a high degree of freedom, which presents chances to alleviate intense thermal interactions. In this study, we used a new performance indicator to access the effectiveness of GSHP operational strategies on alleviating thermal anomalies. The Daxing Airport GSHP system, contains 10,497 BHEs and is the largest in the world; therefore, it was selected as the test case for performance enhancement through operational strategies. We established a 2D model to predict ground temperature changes during the 50-year operation of the BHEs. First, it was revealed that the most severe thermal anomalies in the study area mainly occurred both within and between the BHE arrays, which should be mitigated. To alleviate the thermal anomalies caused by the thermal interactions of BHEs, operational strategies were applied by adjusting the cooling/heating starting sequence, setting time-dependent thermal loads, and reallocating thermal loads according to the position of the BHEs. Our study demonstrates that only the operation strategy that adjusts the cooling/heating starting sequence is beneficial for different BHE layouts, while the operational strategy that reallocates the thermal loads depending on BHEs position may be only effective for specific BHE layouts. In addition, our new performance indicator can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the operational strategies and determine the spacing of adjacent BHE arrays. Therefore, it benefits the operation management of BHE array and design of BHE layout, and further guarantees the sustainable operation of the GSHP system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the increase in application of solar PV systems, it is of great significance to develop and investigate direct current (DC)-powered equipment in buildings with flexible operational strategies. A promising piece of building equipment integrated in PV-powered buildings, DC inverter heat pump systems often operate with strategies either focused on the power supply side or on the building demand side. In this regard, the aim of this study was to investigate the operational strategy of a DC inverter heat pump system for application in an office building with a PV power system. Firstly, the PV power fluctuation and demand-side load characteristics were analyzed. Then, a series of heat transfer and heat pump system models were developed. A reference building model was developed for simulating the performance of the system. A control logic of the DC inverter heat pump was proposed with a certain level of flexibility and capability considering both the characteristics of the PV power generation and the demand-side heating load. MATLAB/Simulink 2021 software was used for simulation. The simulation results show that the DC inverter heat pump is able to regulate its own power according to the change signal of the bus voltage such that the DC distribution network can achieve power balance and thus provide enough energy for a room. This study can provide a reference for developing flexible operational strategies for DC inverter heat pump systems. The proposed strategy can also help to improve the systems’ performance when they are applied in buildings with distributed PV systems.

The coronavirus/SARS‐CoV‐2 (COVID‐19) outbreak has caused severe supply chain disruptions in practically all industries worldwide. Online e‐commerce platforms, which interact directly with various industries and service numerous consumers, have become remarkable interfaces to observe the impacts of the pandemic on supply chains. Using quantitative operational data obtained from JD.com https://www.jd.com., this study analyzes the impact of the pandemic on supply chain resilience, summarizes the challenging scenarios that retailing supply chains experienced in China, and presents the practical response of JD.com throughout the pandemic. To summarize, the pandemic caused exceptional demand and severe logistical disruptions in China, and JD.com has handled well its supply chain management in response based on its integrated supply chain structure and comprehensive intelligent platforms. In particular, the existing intelligent platforms and the delivery procedures were modified slightly but promptly to deal with specific disruptions. Moreover, the entire market scenario in China was effectively controlled through the joint efforts of multiple firms, the government, and the entire Chinese society. Our study provides an example of using practical operational indicators to analyze supply chain resilience, and suggests firms pay attention to operational flexibility and collaboration beyond supply chains to deal with a large‐scale supply chain disruption, such as the COVID‐19 outbreak. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Renewable-based green hydrogen is emerging as a viable solution for decarbonizing energy-intensive industries. However, the fluctuating and intermittent nature of renewable energy sources requires careful consideration of operational strategies to ensure the safe and economical use of green hydrogen in industrial applications. This study examines the influence of operational strategies for electrolyzers and downstream processes on the cost of solar-based green hydrogen. The results demonstrate that optimal operational strategies for electrolyzers significantly impact the sizes of batteries and electrolyzers, reducing the Levelized Cost of Hydrogen (LCOH) by an average of 5.3%. Case studies further demonstrate that decentralized end-user supply strategies and cooperation with downstream processes can reduce LCOH by up to 39.8% for fully distributed end-users and by 24.2% with the introduction of supply tolerance. Additionally, the study evaluates the impact of grid backup, revealing that grid utilization can reduce LCOH by 12.9% in Houston, underscoring the potential for further cost reductions through grid decarbonization. These findings highlight the importance of optimizing operational strategies to improve the economic performance and market viability of green hydrogen systems. • Analysis of operational strategies affect on the cost of solar-based green hydrogen. • A 6-hour minimum on-time for electrolyzers minimized LCOH by reducing shutdowns. • Decentralized end-users cut LCOH by 39.8%, mainly in areas with seasonal variation. • Grid backup cut LCOH by 13% in Houston, showing potential from grid decarbonization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The successful introduction of battery electric trucks heavily depends on public charging infrastructure. But even as the first trucks capable of long-haul transportation are being built, no coherent fast-charging networks are yet available. This paper presents a methodology for assessing fast charging networks for electric trucks in Germany from the literature. It aims to establish a quantitative understanding of the networks’ performance and robustness to deviations from idealized system parameters and identify crucial charging sites from a transportation planning perspective. Additionally, the study explores the quantification of adaptation effects displayed by agents in response to charging site outages. To achieve these objectives, a comprehensive methodology incorporating infrastructure, vehicle and operational strategy modeling, simulation, and subsequent evaluation is presented. Factors such as charging station locations, C-rates, mandatory rest periods, and vehicle parameters are taken into account, along with the distribution of traffic according to publicly available data. The study aims to offer a comprehensive understanding of charging networks’ performance and resilience. This will be applied in a case study on two proposed networks and newly created derivatives. The proposed network offers over 99% coverage for long-haul transport but leads to a time loss of approximately 7% under reference conditions. This study advances the understanding of the performance and resilience of proposed charging networks, providing a solid foundation for the design and implementation of robust and efficient charging infrastructure for electric trucks.

Copyright of Journal of Academic Library & Information Science is the property of Anhui University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

To accelerate the transition of the heating sector possibilities are discussed to make excess heat from industrial companies available for building supply via district heating systems (DHS). By coupling complex industrial energy systems (IES) with DHS the utilization of industrial waste heat, renewable energy sources as well as more efficient energy converters can be increased. In the transformation of DHS through an increasingly decentralized heat supply and the integration of prosumers, different pricing schemes are being discussed. To participate in DHS, IES must consider different participation models during their investment and operational planning. We present an optimization approach for the operational planning of IES focusing on the coupling to DHS. The modeling approach can adapt to different participation models within DHS such as contractual pricing, coordinated feed-in, and cooperative operation. The optimization yields the optimal operating decisions and cost. The results of an industrial use case shows that a higher utilization of waste heat and energy converters such as combined heat and power can be reached by coupling IES to DHS, but the cost and emission savings are highly dependent on the participation model of the DHS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has revealed that Catholic hospitals are more likely follow a strategy of horizontal diversification and maximization of the number of patients treated, whereas Protestant hospitals follow a strategy of horizontal specialization and focus on vertical differentiation. However, there is no empirical evidence pertaining to this mechanism. We conduct an empirical study in a German setting and argue that physician leadership mediates the relationship between ownership and operational strategies. The study includes the construction of a model combining data from a survey and publicly available information derived from the annual quality reports of German hospitals. Our results show that Catholic hospitals opt for leadership structures that ensure operational strategies in line with their general values, i.e., operational strategies of maximizing volume throughout the overall hospital. They prefer part-time positions for chief medical officers, as chief medical officers are identified to foster strategies of maximizing the overall number of patients treated. Hospital owners should be aware that the implementation of part-time and full-time leadership roles can help to support their strategies. Thus, our results provide insights into the relationship between leadership structures at the top of an organization, on the one hand, and strategic choices, on the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Liner shipping companies (LSCs) apply distinct operational strategies in order to improve efficiency. The relationship between various operational strategies and profitability, however, has not been systematically and empirically examined. This study innovatively extracts and quantifies eight commonly used operational strategy measures from Automatic Identification System (AIS) data, and investigates the relationship between LSCs' operational strategies and profitability. This relationship is further examined in light of market focus or non-focus approaches. Machine learning-based clustering methods use four of these operational strategy measures (market scope, market scope diversity, average voyage distance, and ship size diversity) in order to categorize LSCs as focused or non-focused. The results of this study show that focused LSCs tend to achieve higher level of profitability than do non-focused LSCs. Non-focused companies, on the other hand, can limit the interplay between operational strategies and profitability. More specifically, we find that two operational strategies (capacity allocation and service frequency) have a non-linear relationship to profitability, while speed choice and idle capacity ratio are linearly related to profitability. • Extract eight operational strategy measures of liner companies from AIS data. • Identify the market focus approach of liner companies. • Investigate the relationship between profit margin and operational strategies. • Investigate the impact of market focus approach on identified relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes an operational strategy based on the theory of transaction utility, aiming to mitigate the negative impact of customers’ free-riding behaviour. This operational strategy is named the reference price mechanism (RPM), in which the retailer gives a reference price that may be different from the retail price, and the customer’s purchase decision is affected by the reference price. Based on the Hotelling model, we develop a duopoly game by considering the free-riding cost to systematically discuss the effectiveness of the RPM. The results show that the brick-and-mortar/online retailer can benefit from implementing the RPM separately, vice versa. If both retailers implement the RPM, only the retailer with the higher reference price can attain more profits. In addition, there is a threshold of the free-riding cost that can affect whether the retailers implement the RPM.

This paper proposes practical weapon target assignment (WTA) algorithms for a defense system to counter multiple targets concentrated within a narrow area, such as low-altitude rocket threats or drone swarms. Since the probability of kill (PK) is greatly affected by heading errors between launchers and targets in this type of engagement, WTA problems must first be formulated, considering heading error, to reflect more realistic engagement situations. Two WTA algorithms—a rotation-fixed strategy and a rotation strategy— are proposed based on this formulation. Moreover, we propose a method for determining launchers’ initial orientation angles, based on a clustering approach, to further improve the engagement performance of the two algorithms. Numerical simulations were performed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods.

The 2019 government work report proposed to make the service of number portability officially in effect nationwide.The preparation works had encountered many challenges, such as upgradation of network, changes of rules, and regulations.Firstly, an complete implementation plan from two aspects was proposed: service interaction and system support, including portability procedure, user interface, system structure and service enquiry.Secondly, operational regulations and policies related to number portability was analyzed and researched, and optimized suggestions were put forward.Finally, the present portability development status was summarized and the future development trend was predicted.China Telecom has maintained the leading position, the lowest complaints and system failures in the industry.Proposed policies regarding supervision have been adopted by the industry.

In this study, the actual operation status of the cogeneration model was investigated to examine the difference between the theoretical evaluation and the field operation situation. The adequacy of the installed capacity of the cogeneration system was assessed by using in-house developed diagnostic analysis simulation tool, and the effects of operational strategy on securing operational cost benefit under the progressive electricity rate system was also examined with event-based operating characteristic analysis. The installed prime mover was found to be designed excessively by an average of 47%, and the relative primary energy savings showed a large deviation in the range of 3–22% for each case. As a result of analyzing the effect of the rapid expansion of renewable energy on the operational performance, it was found that when the renewable power distribution ratio was increased to 30%, the relative primary energy savings effect fell to less than 5%. As an alternative, a hybrid cogeneration model integrated with heat pump was proposed, and it was confirmed that it could have the effect of mitigating the effect of expanding renewable energy.

The operation strategies of a distributed energy system (DES) are usually proposed according to the electrical load (FEL) and the thermal load (FTL), which take the cooling/heating load or electric load as unique constraint conditions that result in a too high or too low equipment load rate. This paper proposes a new hybrid operation strategy (HOS) that takes the full utilization of natural gas and the minimization of power consumption from the power grid as constraints and coordinates the cooling/electricity ratio and heating/electricity ratio of buildings and equipment. In the optimization phase of a DES, an optimization method based on the discretization of the load is proposed to investigate the influence of the uncertainty of the load on the DES, which helps to avoid repeated load simulations and provides stronger adjustability by quoting the normal distribution function to obtain multiple sets of load data with different fluctuations. Further, a multi-objective optimization model combining the genetic algorithm (GA) and mixed integer linear programming algorithm (MILP) was established to find the optimal configuration of equipment capacities by comprehensively considering the annual total cost, carbon emissions, and energy efficiency of the DES. Finally, an office building example was used to validate the feasibility of the above theories and methods. Compared with the FEL and FTL, the HOS reduced the energy waste of the DES by 19.7% and 15.5%, respectively. Compared with using a typical daily load, using an annual hourly load to optimize the DES-HOS produced a better comprehensive performance and lower adverse impacts derived from load fluctuations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In conditions of uncertainty, an enterprise should have a rational basis for making decisions, which would enable the comparison of different alternatives and the choice of the most suitable action for achieving its objectives. Some researchers consider that uncertainty is generated either by insufficient knowledge about the nature of phenomena and processes or by the lack of information about these phenomena and processes. The author considers that these interpretations need to be completed by clarifying the motives which cause uncertainty. The following types of environment can be distinguished which could be considered as sources of uncertainty: socio-economic; scientific and technical; political and juridical; the sales partners’ environment; the environment of the seller; the competitors’ environment; the consumers’ environment; the investments environment. The aim of the present paper is to determine the degree of influence (markedness) of each type of uncertainty upon the decisions made while selecting the operational strategy by the industrial enterprise. The research has been carried out at 29 enterprises from different industrial fields from Romania: metallurgical industry, production of basic pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical preparations, construction materials industry, food-processing industry, manufacture of chemical substances and products. The management teams of those companies have taken part in the survey. The research is based on the data processing and analysis obtained from 256 questionnaires. The survey carried out within the industrial enterprises has shown that the uncertainty from the consumption environment has the biggest impact upon the operational decisions of the companies. The uncertainty from the internal, political, juridical, scientific and technical environment is being analyzed to a lesser extent. The lowest domain of uncertainty is characteristic for the chemical industry and the highest for the industry of manufacture of basic pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical preparations.

There is a lot of scientific papers that consider the efficiency of different container yard’s handling strategies. The methods of assessment vary from abstract mathematical calculations to aposterioric collection and analyses of practical data. This article deals with a new way of stacking strategy’s estimation. It postulates that investigations based on the extrapolation of existing strategies cannot be reliable due to rapid changes in terminals’ environment and restricted amount of data that can be collected within limited periods of the strategies’ application. The hypothesis of the study is that the only method that could provide robust comparative study of container stacking strategies is the simulation modelling. In the same time, any model is only a tool of analyses. The synthesis could be provided only by massive iterations of single simulation experiments with controlled searching procedure in the space of parameters. Consequently, the stress of the simulation study should be put not on the model itself, but on the way how to use it, i.e. on the experiments planning. Only a rationally constructed machine of simulation scenario generation could provide adequate and statistically reliable results. In order to demonstrate the importance of this ‘task setting’ machine, two example strategies are selected for comparison: (1) allocation of containers to slots with the minimum height and (2) stacking of containers in accordance with expected dwell time. It also shows that the objective function has a great impact on the optimal strategy implementation. In the study described in the paper the number of moves requested to select a container is opted as an optimization criterion.

This study introduces a novel framework of an electricity and hydrogen supply system integrating with a photovoltaic power station for a residential area. The non-residential parts including the power grid and non-residential vehicles are added to ensure power balance and bring benefits, respectively. The optimal operational strategy of the proposed framework with considering uncertainties is proposed. The objective function minimizes the expected operational cost (EOC) by reducing the imported electricity from the power grid and increasing exported electricity/hydrogen to non-residential vehicles. Additionally, the demand response program (DRP) is applied in the residential load to achieve operational cost reduction. The uncertainties are modeled via various scenarios by using scenario-based stochastic optimization method. Notably, existing research for similar frameworks both lacks the consideration of uncertainties and DRP, and fails to distinguish the residential and non-residential vehicles with different charging behaviors. The results indicate that 1) The feasibility of the proposed framework is validated which can ensure the power balance of the residential area and reduce the operational cost. 2) The EOC is reduced when considering DRP. • A novel framework of an electricity and hydrogen supply system for a residential area is proposed. • The operational strategy of the framework is proposed with considering the uncertainties. • Residential vehicles and non-residential vehicles are modeled separately. • The DRP is introduced to reduce the expected operational cost of the framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Survey data were collected from 179 rural strategic decision-makers in Hunan Province, China. The results show that the emotional energy has a significant long-term impact on rural tourism enterprises. Emotional energy is based on group solidarity, and to further explore the rational realization mechanism of group unity, the Stackelberg model and the Shapley value are used to obtain the cooperative equilibrium solution and the optimal allocation mechanism between the subjects, aiming to providing a path to achieve group unity and ideas for improving the emotional energy of rural tourism companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past decade, subsidy policies aimed at demand-side of photovoltaic (PV) supply chains have created a dilemma. While they foster the growth of the PV industry, they also induce overcapacity problems to the society. As a result, many governments have cut back subsidies to PV system users. These subsidy reductions hurt PV enterprises and their supply chains that are now facing lost business. To rescue enterprises, but not the market, an appropriate supply-side oriented subsidy policy is urgently needed. It is also important that different stakeholders on a PV supply chain develop closer collaborations to enhance their competitiveness against their rival PV supply chains. In this paper, we use game-theoretical models to investigate the impact of this new approach to policy design within the PV industry. Our findings suggest that the government should properly control the PV market entry, implement a balanced subsidy program and encourage a healthy competition among multiple PV supply chains to balance the operational performance of PV supply chains and the effects of government subsidy on the improvement of market out and social welfare. Under such a governance and subsidy program, a moderate combination of operational strategies will be the robust strategic response for multiple PV supply chains in a competitive environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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BACKGROUND: The work organization not only comprises the formal structure but also social interactions, which are developed according to its own rules based on variabilities and professional competences. During real work, there are regulatory processes that result in the development of strategies to meet the requirements of the work organization and maintain health status. OBJECTIVE: To understand the regulatory processes involved in work activities and analyze the extent to which the developed strategies are sufficient to protect employees' integrity and guarantee performance. METHODS: This study was carried out in an agricultural implement manufacturing company, whose qualitative procedures were analyzed by combining activity observations, interviews, and self-confrontation. RESULTS: In view of the interaction of logic, operators comply with some rules to the detriment of others, based on the decision processes of their individual and collective experience. The availability of resources compatible with activity demands increases the possibility of action and competence development. The cost of regulations for less experienced operators is higher, taking into consideration the level of uncertainty resulting from contradictions and variabilities. CONCLUSION: It is necessary to discuss the contradictions manifested in operators' work routines through interactions between heterogeneous rationalities. From this, it is possible to construct a common reference about the activity and increase the possibilities of action during real work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research explores the vital factors that prevent institutional child care homes from ensuring optimal wellbeing to the children, from becoming development friendly for the children and a real alternate to family system in India. Child care homes are socially and legally constructed rather instituted. They are designed not only to provide a roof to the destitute children, but are expected to contribute significantly for their personality and overall development in the absence of a biological family. Very often institutional care homes are criticised for their failure to provide adequate care and support to the children. In this context, the present study aims to unravel the challenges faced by institutional care system which prevent them from performing their core functions and becoming delivering in character. The study is conducted by the authors in five care homes in the state of Odisha, a state in the eastern province of India. Three care homes are government sponsored while two care homes are managed by private trusts. The researchers have used personal interaction and have administered a semi structured interview schedule to collect the information from the five studied care homes. A tripartite objective has guided the study i.e. to probe into the objectives, organisation and operational strategy. The paper notes that institutional child care homes till date though adhere to some common objectives and organisational structure, fail to have a standardised operational strategy which is basically due to the financial crunch and poor financial management and priority fixation. So, the paper recommends the development and administration of a common guidelines to manage the care homes' functioning, to keep a surveillance on their capital use and their goal setting and goal attainment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the framework of the increasing competition and the danger of the pandemic global crises, it becomes necessary to boost the operational systems in the pharmaceutical industry, improve the activity related to resource processing, in order to ensure the stability of the organizations. The operational systems of pharmaceutical companies are changing every decade, together with changes in production management, focusing primarily on productivity and economies of scale, economy quality, production flexibility on the scheduling of production, customer, and then - to the economy of speed, innovation, and knowledge, skills and cooperation. One of the most important features of the operational systems is the operational strategy and its flexibility and adaptability because in the real business environment there are frequent changes in economic models, financial architecture, and production technologies. Therefore the operational strategy must take into account the current state of productive potential and the level and type of uncertainty, propose changes that will lead to the formation of future productive potential that will maintain or increase the level of competitiveness of the enterprise.

The operation strategies of a distributed energy system (DES) are usually proposed according to the electrical load (FEL) and the thermal load (FTL), which take the cooling/heating load or electric load as unique constraint conditions that result in a too high or too low equipment load rate. This paper proposes a new hybrid operation strategy (HOS) that takes the full utilization of natural gas and the minimization of power consumption from the power grid as constraints and coordinates the cooling/electricity ratio and heating/electricity ratio of buildings and equipment. In the optimization phase of a DES, an optimization method based on the discretization of the load is proposed to investigate the influence of the uncertainty of the load on the DES, which helps to avoid repeated load simulations and provides stronger adjustability by quoting the normal distribution function to obtain multiple sets of load data with different fluctuations. Further, a multi-objective optimization model combining the genetic algorithm (GA) and mixed integer linear programming algorithm (MILP) was established to find the optimal configuration of equipment capacities by comprehensively considering the annual total cost, carbon emissions, and energy efficiency of the DES. Finally, an office building example was used to validate the feasibility of the above theories and methods. Compared with the FEL and FTL, the HOS reduced the energy waste of the DES by 19.7% and 15.5%, respectively. Compared with using a typical daily load, using an annual hourly load to optimize the DES-HOS produced a better comprehensive performance and lower adverse impacts derived from load fluctuations.

AARRR funnel model is adopted to analyze the operating system of library's short videos on three APPs with five indicators, Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Revenue, Referral. By comparing the similarities and differences of short video marketing between public libraries and university libraries, this paper analyzes marketing strategies and discusses issues that new social media can bring to library service extension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Summary: This study formulated a bi‐level mixed integer non‐linear optimization planning and operation model for the optimal configuration (location, capacity, and power ratings) of energy storage systems (ESSs) in power transmission networks. The model was formulated with consideration for independent and correlated wind farms. The single objective function in the inner layer of the bi‐level model includes the difference between the total daily expected operational cost of conventional generators and the energy arbitrage benefits derived when considering the operational strategies of ESSs. The outer layer is a multi‐objective function composed of three objective functions to be minimized. The objective functions encompass the total daily expected planning and operational cost, total daily expected emission, and the maximum expected voltage deviation. Wind power uncertainties in independent and correlated wind farms were also examined. Multivariate model‐based Clayton copulas, which represent joint power distribution amongst correlated wind farms, were discretized using a developed five‐point estimation method based on the discretization. A hybrid non‐dominating sorted genetic algorithm and multi‐objective particle swarm optimization were used to minimize the outer layer objective function, whilst fast Tabu search that considers the probabilistic load flow represented by wind power uncertainties and the operational strategies of ESSs was adopted to minimize the inner layer objective function. An IEEE 57‐bus system was subjected to a case study using the proposed two‐stage model. The simulation results confirmed the advantage of considering the benefits of a peak shaving operational strategy from economic, technical, and environmental points of view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]