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Purpose Some of the major concerns since the implementation of smart meters (prepaid meters) in some parts of Ghana is how electricity consumers have benefited from data obtained from these meters by providing important statistics on electricity-saving advice; this is one of the key demand-side management methods for achieving load reduction in residential homes. Appliance shifting techniques have proved to be an effective demand response strategy in load reduction. The purpose of this paper is therefore to help consumers of electricity understand when and how they can shift some appliances from peak to off-peak and vice versa. Design/methodology/approach The research uses an analysis technique of Richardson et al. (2010). In their survey on time-of-use surveys to determine the usage of electricity in households as far as appliance shifting was concerned, this study allowed for the assessment of how the occupants’ daily activities in households affect residential electricity consumption. Fell et al. (2014) modeled an aggregate of electricity demand using different appliances (n) in the household. The data for the peak time used in this study were identified from 05:00 to 08:00 and 17:00 to 21:00 for testing the load shifting algorithms, and the off-peak times were pecked from 10:00 to 16:00 and 23:00. This study technique used load management considering real-time scheduling for peak levels in the selected homes. The household devices are modeled in terms of controlled parameters. Using this study’s time-triggered loads on refrigerators and air conditioning systems, the findings suggested that peak loads can be reduced to 45% as a means of maintaining the simultaneous quality of service. To minimize peak loads to around 35% or more, Chaiwongsa and Wongwises (2020) have indicated that room air conditioning and refrigerator loads are simpler to move compared to other household appliances such as cooking appliances. Yet in conclusion, this study made a strong case that a decrease in household peak demand for electricity is primarily contingent on improvements in human behavior. Findings This study has shown that appliance load shifting is a very good way of reducing electrical consumption in residential homes. The comparative performance shows a moderate reduction of 1% in load as was found in the work done by Laicaine (2014). The results, however, indicate that load shifting to a large extent can be achieved by consumer behavioral change. The main response to this study is to advise policymakers in Ghana to develop the appropriate demand response and consumer education towards the general reduction in electrical load in domestic households. The difficulty, however, is how to get the attention of consumer’s on how to start using appliances with less load at peak and also shift some appliances from off-peak times. By increasing consumer knowledge and participation in demand response, it is possible to achieve more efficiency and flexibility in load reduction. The findings were benchmarked with existing comparison studies but may benefit from the potential production of structured references. However, the findings show that load shifting can only be done by modifying consumer actions. Research limitations/implications It should be remembered that this study showed that the use of appliances shifting in residential homes results in load reduction benefits for customers, expressed as savings in electricity prices. The next step will be to build on this cost/benefit study to explain and measure how these reductions transform into net consumer gains for all Ghanaian households. Practical/implications Load shifting will include load controllers in the future, which would automatically handle electricity consumption from various appliances in the home. Based on the device and user needs, the controllers can prioritize loads and appliance usage. The algorithms that underpin automatic load controllers will include knowledge about the behaviors of groups of end users. The results on the time dependency of activities may theoretically inform the algorithms of automatic demand controllers. Originality/value This paper addresses an important need for the country in the midst of finding solutions to an unending energy crisis. This paper presents demand response to the Ghanaian electricity consumer as a means to help in the reduction of load in residential homes. This is a novel research as no one has at yet carried out any research in this direction in Ghana. This paper has some new information to offer in the field of demand in household electricity consumption.

Analogous to traditional Initial Public Offerings (IPO), Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) represent an emerging channel through which firms can access external funding using the new evolving digital financial market for tokens. However, while ICOs represent an alternative funding channel for startups, the ICO market is essentially unregulated, which creates opportunities for fraud such as ‘ICO scams’. This paper addresses the question as to what the expected losses attributable to scams in the market for ICOs are. Using web scrapping techniques, all ICOs launched between August 2014 and December 2019 were first screened for accusations of fraud, before a novel methodological framework was employed to understand the true costs associated with scams. The findings reveal that 56.80% of ICOs were subject to scams, corresponding to 65.80% of the relevant market capitalization, estimated at USD 15.38 billion. Moreover, it is found that the loss distribution due to scam ICOs is governed by a fractal process. Specifically, the power law exponent for the distribution governing losses due to scam ICOs suggests that the second moment is not defined, rendering the sample mean unstable. Taken together, the results in this paper provide evidence that we have not yet seen the largest loss in the market for ICOs and are supportive of an urgent need for ICO market regulations from governments and regulatory agencies.

Introduction The COVID-19 pandemic greatly affected the 2020-2021 residency application cycle. In 2020, residency programs across the country, including dermatology residency training programs, created social media accounts and implemented virtual open houses. It is unclear whether these methods effectively evaluated and recruited applicants. We aimed to assess the impact of visiting rotations, pre-interview events, and virtual interviews through the lens of dermatology program directors and medical students who matched into dermatology in 2021. Methods A survey consisting of multiple-choice and open-ended questions was distributed to all 138 dermatology residency program directors in the United States on May 4, 2021, by email. Results With a program director (PD) response rate of approximately 13%, the data obtained from the survey is limited. However, 68% of PDs were in agreeance that the absence of a student’s away rotation would limit their ability to gauge an applicant. Further, the most offered virtual pre-interview event was a Q&A session with residents. However, virtual open houses were the most highly rated virtual pre-interview event (average effectiveness score 6.8 out of 10). Conclusion Residency programs and applicants adapted to the virtual application cycle through enhanced virtual interaction, and these opportunities appeared to impact the application cycle in nuanced ways. While this study was limited by a low response rate, it may provide a framework for the continued use of virtual opportunities in the wake of a global pandemic.

The unique challenges posed by COVID-19 call for new insights into how firms respond to multiheaded and multistage evolving global crises. Whilst prior research acknowledges the potential role flexible organizational designs and top management teams (TMTs) have for crisis management, these bodies of literature have evolved separately with limited cross-fertilization. In this study, we seek to provide a contextualized explanation of research phenomena by drawing upon multiple layers of context – namely the environment, TMT and organisational context. Our findings provide vital insights into how emerging market Indian SMEs’ organizational designs and TMT configurations led to differential COVID-19 crisis response strategies. We develop a typology that identifies four strategic responses and illustrate that not all emerging market SMEs are vulnerable at the time of crisis. Our findings extend knowledge on how emerging market SMEs can navigate external shocks such as those caused by COVID-19. In particular, our research has implications for policymakers and emerging market firms seeking to understand and implement effective organizational designs and policies that can weather the current COVID-19 pandemic, as well as future multiheaded and multistage black swan crises.

Few can argue with the notion that corporations should at least consider corporate social responsibility (CSR) to better understand the impact of their operations on society. However, recent empirical tests suggest CSR has an ambiguous impact on firm performance. To shed new light on this debate, we examine the extent to which voting support for nonbinding shareholder-initiated CSR proposals is empirically linked to changes in firms’ underlying systematic risks. Using a rich dataset of proposals in the US from 1998 to 2011, we contribute several novel findings. First, we show that shareholder voting support is nonlinearly linked to changes in systematic risk. Specifically, proposals with low voting support increase risk while those with high support decrease risk. This nonlinearity is particularly pronounced for consumer-sensitive firms that cater primarily to individual consumers rather than for firms in non-consumer-sensitive industries that produce goods or services meant for industrial or governmental use. Second, the 2007–2009 financial crisis exacerbated increases in firms’ systematic risks for proposals with low voting support. Our results, which highlight asymmetry regarding firms’ CSR initiatives, remain robust when controlling for firm-specific factors as well as shifts in investor sentiment. From a risk management perspective, our findings suggest that CSR initiatives need strong shareholder support to realize benefits from the so-called ‘risk-reduction hypothesis’.

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE:Von Hippel Lindau (VHL) is an autosomal dominant hereditary disorder characterized by multiple neoplastic lesions, including pheochromocytomas. This study retrospectively...

Peanut allergy (PA) affects approximately 1.6 million US children. The current standard of care is strict avoidance and prompt reaction treatment. Peanut allergy health care costs and health care resource utilization (HCRU) are poorly understood.To estimate PA health care costs and HCRU using a nationally representative commercial payer database.The IBM MarketScan Commercial Claims and Encounters Database was examined for PA diagnosis/reaction codes between January 2010 and October 2016 in patients 64 years of age or younger, with age cohort-matched controls. Outcomes were measured 12 months before and after the first claim date. Health care costs and HCRU were compared using Student's t tests and χPatients with a PA-related diagnostic code (n = 41,675) incurred almost double all-cause health care costs vs controls ($6436 vs $3493, P.001), mainly from inpatient and outpatient medical costs ($5002 vs $2832, P.001). More than one third of the PA group patients (36%) had a code indicative of an anaphylactic reaction during follow-up. Mean PA or reaction-related code costs per visit totaled $7921 for hospitalizations and $1115 for emergency department (ED) visits. Costs were 30% lower in patients with asthma codes without PA codes vs those with both codes ($5678 vs $8112, P.001); all-cause ED costs were more than double in patients with atopic dermatitis codes with PA codes vs those without PA codes ($654 vs $308, P.001).National commercial payer claims data indicate a significant health care burden associated with a PA-related code, including over $6400/patient in annual all-cause costs and increased health care utilization.

Thyroid cancer is the most frequent endocrine tumor. BRAF mutation is the most frequent alteration in thyroid cancer. The metabolic consequences of these mutations is unknown. Recent studies have suggested a pro-metastatic role of the metabolic processes in several solid malignancies. The aim of this study is to identify the metabolic pathways dysregulated in thyroid carcinogenesis with oncogenic mutations. BRAFV600Einduced HEK293 cells underwent a metabolomic profiling via mass spectrometry, which showed an increase in glutamine metabolism. Glutaminolysis, a dysregulated metabolic pathway is initiated by glutaminase (GLS), which converts glutamine to glutamate. Analysis of GLS expression in thyroid cancer tissue revealed an increase of GLS within the tumor compared to normal tissue. GEO dataset analysis revealed higher GLS expression in undifferentiated thyroid tumors compared to differentiated cancer and normal tissue (p=0.0001, p

Live streaming of stage performances by opera and theatre companies into cinemas, and increasingly into the home, continues to grow rapidly. What the cinema audience hears and sees differs qualitatively both from what is seen in the theatre and also from what is normally available in cinemas. The ‘real-time liveness’ offered by leading companies appears to be an important attraction, though may diminish as the novelty of streamed performances wears off. The cinema audience is both socio-demographically and in cultural experience more similar to the theatre audiences than to typical cinema audiences, giving rise to suggestions that streaming might cannibalise the live audiences of the transmitting theatres, but there is no evidence of this, nor, at least in the UK, to support speculation that streaming reduces audiences for regional arts companies. Streaming should therefore be welcomed as broadening the number of consumers who can benefit from arts subsidies.

Background: The BRAF(V600E) mutation is the most common somatic mutation in thyroid cancer. The mechanism associated with BRAF-mutant tumor aggressiveness remains unclear. Lysyl oxidase (LOX) is highly expressed in aggressive thyroid cancers, and involved in cancer metastasis. The objective was to determine whether LOX mediates the effect of the activated MAPK pathway in thyroid cancer. Methods: The prognostic value of LOX and its association with mutated BRAF was analyzed in The Cancer Genome Atlas and an independent cohort. Inhibition of mutant BRAF and the MAPK pathway, and overexpression of mutant BRAF and mouse models of BRAF(V600E) were used to test the effect on LOX expression. Results: In The Cancer Genome Atlas cohort, LOX expression was higher in BRAF-mutant tumors compared to wild-type tumors (p

A novel surface flow wetland demonstrates high-rate nitrification by recirculating water supersaturated with oxygen. Design of the wetland was based on two hypotheses: (1) Oxygen supersaturation of a recirculating sidestream would support nitrification in a surface flow wetland at rates comparable to aerated subsurface flow wetlands, and; (2) Nitrification would be maintained in cold water conditions (0.5–5.0 °C) with minimal bioaugmentation using commercially available liquid suspensions of nitrifying bacteria. The wetland has an area of 23,000 m2, of which the final 21,000 m2 is oxygenated. Mean flow was 863 m3 d−1. A downflow oxygen contactor (Speece cone) maintains dissolved oxygen at or over saturation in the wetland. Mean inflow NH3-N was 8.0 mg L−1, mean outflow 0.6 mg L−1. In winter, nitrification began to degrade slowly at a water temperature of 0.5 °C to about half the summer rate but was restored by bioaugmentation with nitrifying bacteria in one month at water temperatures less than 3.3 °C. Determination of nitrification rates by a first-order, tanks-in-series model (P-k-C*) was hindered by the method detection limit (0.2 mg L−1 NH3-N) of analytical methods and the inherent limitations of first order models for complete nitrification. The median monthly nitrification areal rate coefficient from April 2016 through June 2017 was at least 216 m y−1, which is 15 times greater than median passive wetland literature rates. High nitrification rates allow for at least a 90% reduction of required treatment area for nitrification at approximately one third the capital cost of aerated subsurface flow wetlands. Denitrification rates were well within observed literature values. The peak monthly mean denitrification rate, observed in June 2017, was 76 m y−1, but winter denitrification rates were close to zero.

Glycosaminoglycan (GAG) analysis represents a challenging frontier despite the advent of many high-resolution technologies because of their unparalleled structural complexity. We previously developed a resolving agent-aided capillary electrophoretic approach for fingerprinting low-molecular-weight heparins (LMWHs) to profile their microscopic differences and assess batch-to-batch variability. In this report, we study the application of this approach for fingerprinting other GAGs and analyze the basis for the fingerprints observed in CE. Although the resolving agents, linear polyalkylamines, could resolve the broad featureless electropherogram of LMWH into a large number of distinct, highly reproducible peaks, longer GAGs such as chondroitin sulfate, dermatan sulfate, and heparin responded in a highly individualistic manner. Full-length heparin interacted with linear polyalkylamines very strongly followed by dermatan sulfate, whereas chondroitin sulfate remained essentially unaffected. Oversulfated chondroitin sulfate could be easily identified from full-length heparin. Scatchard analysis of the binding profile of enoxaparin with three linear polyalkylamines displayed a biphasic binding profile suggesting two distinctly different types of interactions. Some LMWH chains were found to interact with linear polyalkylamines with affinities as high as 10 nM, whereas others displayed nearly 5000-fold weaker affinities. These observations provide fundamental insight into the basis for fingerprinting of LMWHs by linear polyalkylamine-based resolving agents, which could be utilized in the design of advanced resolving agents for compositional profiling, direct sequencing, and chemoinformatics studies.

The large wave of bank mergers, which had affected the US bank sector in the years leading 2007-2009 crisis, experienced a sudden decline in both volume and value in the post-financial crisis period. This study examines whether TARP banks, i.e. banks that received government financial support during the recent 2007-2009 crisis, differed in terms of M&A financial performance outcomes in the pre and post financial crisis periods compared to non-TARP recipients. We find significant and differences in the post-merger financial performance of TARP recipients compared to non-TARP recipients in the post financial crisis period but no significant differences in their pre-merger performance. Our results infer differences in merger motivations for TARP and non-TARP banks.

In a market characterized by a very large number of consumers, irregularly and infrequently choosing from a constantly changing menu of possibilities, widely available impartial information and advice would be expected to make a significant impact on demand. In the U.S. in 2003, however, there was zero correlation between critical ratings for films and gross box office earnings. For movies released on more than 1,000 screens, critical ratings were indeed positively related to gross earnings, and, together with production budgets and the number of opening screens, explained more than half the variance. But films with only limited opening release received higher average ratings. This is especially the case for foreign movies and documentaries but also true for American films, whose ratings, though positively related to the box office, seldom have enough influence to propel a movie into later wide exhibition or high earnings.

Have different methods of financing the performing arts had an effect on thequality or diversity of thestock of works to be performed? This paper contrasts experience in the HolyRoman Empire and Italyfrom the mid-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century when copyright lawsbegan to play a major rolein the economics of composition. The period 1751–1790 strongly confirmshypotheses that patron-drivenopera would be expected to be qualitatively superior to market-driven opera. Italian experience from1810–1840, however, suggests that this result cannot be generalized.

We investigate whether handsomely rewarding bank executives’ realizes superior efficiency by determining if executive remuneration contracts produce incentives that offset potential agency problems and lead to improvements in bank efficiency. We calculate executive Delta and Vega to proxy executives’ risk-taking following changes in their compensation contracts and estimate their relationship with alternative profit efficiency. Our study uses novel instruments to account for the potentially endogenous relationship between efficiency and Delta and Vega whilst controlling for the structure of executive compensation, board structure, and bank-level characteristics. Our main results demonstrate that shareholders use executive Vega to incentivise executives into taking risks that improve bank efficiency, and also that executive perquisites can be used to attract and retain executives which ex post deliver efficiency gains.

The TEUI-Geospatial Toolkit (Toolkit) is an operational ecological inventory application used by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service and other land management agencies. This resource mapping tool complements traditional inventory methods by streamlining the collection and analysis of inventory information in a digital environment. The Toolkit is based on the USDA Forest Service Terrestrial Ecological Unit Inventory Technical Guide, which complies with the National Cooperative Soil Survey (NCSS) standards. It is intended for resource specialists with a strong background in terrestrial mapping and intermediate geographic information system (GIS) skills. This Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. (ESRI) ArcGIS™ mapping tool guides the user through the TEUI mapping process, helps stratify landscapes and analyze environmental characteristics with geospatial data. Products derived with this operational mapping application comply with corporate data standards and are stored in corporate database systems. Design, development and operational support are performed by the USDA Forest Service Remote Sensing Application Center (RSAC). RSAC provides technical assistance to field units and increases application awareness at various meetings, workshops and conferences. Staying connected with the TEUI soil mapping community establishes an essential feedback loop for gathering new ideas and enhancing application functionality. This paper provides an overview of the current application and highlights specific mapping and data analysis functionality. It also identifies specific benefits that are realized through geospatial technologies as the Toolkit is implemented in the pre-map phase of a TEUI project.

Thesis (Ph.D. (Ethics))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2010.

Clinically used low molecular weight heparins (LMWH) are anticoagulants of choice and are phenomenally complex mixtures of millions of distinct natural and unnatural polymeric sequences. The FDA recommends that each LMWH be considered as an independent drug with its own activity profile, placing significant importance on the biophysical characterization of each intact LMWH. We report a robust protocol for fingerprinting these pharmaceutical agents. Capillary electrophoresis of three LMWHs, enoxaparin, tinzaparin, and a Sigma preparation, under reverse polarity conditions in the presence of selected linear alkyl polyamines gives an electrophoretic pattern that is characteristic of the nature of the starting material. The buffers that best provided optimal resolution without compromising sensitivity and speed of analysis were 50 mM sodium phosphate, pH 2.3, and 100 mM ammonium formate, pH 3.5. Resolution was strongly dependent on the structure of polyamine with pentaethylenehexamine being most effective for enoxaparin and Sigma LMWH. In contrast, tinzaparin could be best resolved with tetraethylenepentamine. Cyclic polyamines were ineffective. Resolution was also dependent on the concentration of resolving agents and displayed a narrow window that provides optimal resolution. These features suggest a strong structural origin of the fingerprint pattern. Overall, the simple protocol will find special use in assessing LMWH quality and batch-to-batch variability.