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Paper-based packaging is a complex multi-material composed of paper (fibers), plastics, and metals, making efficient material recycling complicated. Currently, most of the fibers are recycled into new paper products while the residual material is commonly incinerated. Therefore, to improve the circularity and reduce the fossil dependency chemical recycling is needed. In this study, recycling of the residual materials was evaluated by thermal and catalytic pyrolysis. First, screening tests were performed using five reject materials and four catalysts in an analytical scale and then, a selection of catalyst and reject materials were evaluated in lab-scale followed by a techno-economic assessment. Experimental results indicated that the conversion was more efficient if the reject had high content of plastics compared to fibers, leading to products with increased heating value, higher hydrocarbon yield and less reactive oxygenates compared to the rejects with low plastic ratio. In the thermal pyrolysis 54 % of the weight of the feedstock and 70 wt% of the carbon in the feedstock ended up in a solid organic product (wax) which contained hydrocarbons and alcohols. In the analytical catalytic pyrolysis, HZSM-5 gave the best result in terms of cracking, deoxygenation, and aromatization. Ex-situ catalytic pyrolysis using HZSM-5 resulted in an improved quality of organic liquid with reduced hydrocarbon length as well as deoxygenated and aromatic compounds. The yield of the organic liquid was up to 19 wt% and contained mainly monoaromatics. The techno-economic evaluation showed, for processing 100,000 tons year−1 residual material, the total plant investment and the annual profit are about 29 and 12 million Euros, respectively, if no incentive for treating the residual material. [Display omitted] • Recycling of multi-material packaging waste via thermal and catalytic pyrolysis. • The higher polymer to biomass ratio in the waste, the more efficient conversion. • Thermal pyrolysis generated up to 54 wt% of condensed solids, mainly hydrocarbons. • Catalytic pyrolysis yielded up to 19 wt% of organic liquid, mainly monoaromatics. • Catalytic pyrolysis is economically feasible if the feed rate is ≥ 10,000 tons/year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Employment is wage-constrained and real depreciation raises exports. • Neither the real exchange rate nor exports affect domestic sales. • There is a lack of transmission from investment to growth. • Volatility effects are weak for exports and inconsistent for investment. • There is little evidence of an interest rate effect for investment. This paper evaluates South African manufacturing performance over 25 years. It reports the evolution of five basic variables: employment, mark-ups, exports, domestic sales, and investment, using an aggregated sample of firms from a reliable business database. The approach differs from other economic models by the complementary use of management perceptions in estimated equations. The results reinforce some previous findings; for example, wage pressure tends to constrain domestic sales while the relative wage incentivizes capital investment. The exchange rate matters for exports and investment is constrained by skill shortages. Other findings add evidence to contested issues such as the importance of the interest rate level for investment and exchange rate stability for export growth. Relationships between key variables can help to identify growth constraints and the potential for manufacturing jobs. In particular, the lack of transmission from exports to employment or to domestic sales and the response of the mark-up to investment suggest institutional failures in coordinating market activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Automated industrial Visual Inspection Systems (VIS) are typically customized for specific applications, limiting their flexibility. They are characterized by a demanding setup, high capital investments, and significant knowledge barriers. In this paper, we propose an alternative architecture for the visual inspection of 3D printed parts or complex assemblies using a robotic arm equipped with hand-eye sensors and controllable lighting system. The core of the proposed Flexible Vision Inspection System (FVIS) is the self-extraction of 3D text annotations from STandard for the Exchange of Product model (STEP) AP242 files. The system self-selects and parametrizes the most suitable inspection algorithm, including lighting settings. Additionally, it autonomously performs self-localization, self-referencing of physical products, and self-planning of robot inspection path based on CAD information. This framework, characterized by self-X, cost-effective, non-invasive, and plug-and-play architecture has the potential to disrupt the business model of vision inspection, enabling an as-a-service solution aligned with the next generation of flexible manufacturing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study the effect of land titling on investment in human capital. We first develop a theoretical model of the investment in the presence of property rights to agricultural land and then test the predictions of the model regarding the schooling decisions of households using data from Mexico's PROCEDE land titling program. Using the staggered introduction of land titling, we find that ownership tilted the balance in favor of investment in human capital in the form of schooling. Titling decreased the hazard rate of dropping out of school by 14% for children between the ages of 6 and 18. Additionally, including the effects of the contemporaneous conditional cash transfer program further reduced the hazard rate of dropping out by 34%. We find that these results hold even when the head of the household changes or migrates. Titling has a significant effect on female children but not on extremely poor families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individuals have heterogeneous beliefs regarding the future speed and shape of the low-carbon transition. In this paper, we study to what extent opinion diversity matters for aggregate capital investment decisions. We develop a model where firms formulate heterogeneous expectations around a dominant narrative, or 'market norm', with their dispersion increasing over a finite planning horizon. Our analytical and numerical results suggest that belief heterogeneity can significantly affect the share of low-carbon investments, with the strength of its effects non-linearly correlated to market norms. We show that investment behaviour tends to be more sensitive to shocks to short-term, rather than long-term, belief heterogeneity, highlighting the importance of setting credible short-term targets. Finally, we find beliefs to interact strongly and in non-trivial ways with measures of short-termism, with increasing agents' farsightedness not necessarily leading to less carbon-intensive investments under high heterogeneity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The launch of ChatGPT created a tidal wave of interest, rapid uptake of the app and a surge of capital investment. It quickly became clear that what was now being called 'generative AI' would have multiple impacts and implications across the board. The paper begins by outlining aspects of the context from which these innovations arose. They include Neoliberalism and the 'playbook' of careless, 'non-legal' innovation that occurred during the early rise of social media platforms. The paper also critiques Silicon Valley, both for its one-sided culture and its obsession with marketing. It specifically draws attention to the characteristics and limitations of 'technoscientific' outlooks and the way they conceal, or edit out, key aspects of human existence. A summary of the attributes of technoscience suggests a number of possible responses. Behind these, however, is a widely ignored dilemma - the proposition that a continuation of further stages of high-tech innovation benefits the human enterprise. Yet many high-tech developments are unambiguously sociopathic. They project extreme danger and dysfunction out onto innocent people and unprepared social environments. The paper summarises recent attempts to come to terms with a radically transformed, technology saturated environment and concludes with suggestions for enhancing human agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agri-environmental policies in the UK stand on the threshold of significant change, with wide acceptance that radical changes are needed to ensure a better delivery of public goods in future. The UK's departure from the EU presents an opportunity to fully realise the "Public Money for Public Goods" principle in the new suite of Environmental Land Management schemes. A likely priority will be the delivery of conservation goals at a landscape scale, which will require the recruitment of a broader range of actors and institutions than at present, including an emerging group of what we call in this paper 'new land managers'. Understanding the changing dynamics of rural land occupancy, and the characteristics and motivations of these new land managers, will be essential in the future for the effective delivery of these public schemes. Data on land market trends is nevertheless patchy and poorly researched. For this paper, we drew on a survey of land agents in England, all of whom were members of the Central Association for Agricultural Valuers (CAAV), in order to gather information and reflections on contemporary land markets. A key finding is that agricultural policy reform and retrenchment is seen by many of these experts as a significant driver of future change. Taken together with other interacting factors such as the overall tax burden on businesses and the economic and personal situation of farmers and their succession status, many of our respondents predicted significant structural change, with more land coming on to the market for resale. At the same time, increasing demand for land from "lifestyle/non-farming landholders" and the growing presence of people entering the market interested in enroling land for carbon sequestration and natural capital improvements, will mean a shift in the types of individuals and organisations holding land. Those holding and managing land in coming years are likely to comprise an ever more diverse and fragmented community of land owners and occupiers The task for policymakers then, is to deliver a suite of interventions specifically tailored to the various types of landholders in order to engage them effectively into public goods delivery under ELMs. • Traditional focus of UK agri-environmental policies is on main occupation farmers. • Emphasis on landscape scale delivery requires broader set of public good providers. • Knowledge gaps in rural land occupancy mean that successful recruitment is limited. • Findings reported here indicate a continued diversification of landholder types. • A suite of interventions tailored to the broadening landholders types will be key. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Carbon dioxide capture and mitigation are key to the technological response to combat climate change and reduce CO 2 emissions. • Proposal of a novel system for performance improvement of the conventional post-combustion process. • Thermodynamic, economic, and environmental analyses of the proposed cycles. • The desorption column has the largest contribution to the exergy destruction 257.48 k W. • The solvent regeneration energy decreases to 2.77 G J / t C O 2 , 20.17 % lower compared to the conventional system. An optimum process with a novel method for improving the thermodynamic efficiency of the conventional post-combustion process based on a mono-ethanolamine (MEA) 30 wt% solvent is presented. The presented process, by preheating the rich solvent stream twice and using lean vapor compression (LVC), causes the solvent regeneration energy (E regen) to decrease, the exergy efficiency of the desorption column to increase, and the net CO 2 emission to diminish. According to the simulation results, the solvent regeneration energy in the base process is 3.47 GJ/t CO2 and has a value of 2.77 GJ/t CO2 in the proposed scheme, which exhibits a 20.17% decrease. The exergy analysis showed that the desorption column contributes the most to the exergy destruction in the post-combustion process. According to the performed analysis, in the proposed scheme, the exergy destruction in the desorption column reduces from 476.67 kW to 257.48 kW, which shows a 45.98% decrease. Under these conditions, the exergy efficiency of the desorption column is improved by 12.2%. Comparing E r e g e n parameter with that of previous studies demonstrated that the proposed scheme in this paper has significant superiority regarding optimizing the reboiler's energy. Due to the addition of a compressor, heat exchanger, expansion valve, and separator, the annual capital expenditure (CAPEX y) of the proposed scheme is 13.71% higher than the conventional process, which results in a 12.5% increase in the cost of CO 2 capture ( C o s t C O 2 , c a p t u r e ). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact of labor protection on the labor investment efficiency of labor-intensive enterprises. Based on data from A-share listed companies in China, we introduce difference-in-differences design to identify the impact of The Labor Contract Law on enterprises' employment investment and business decision-making. We find that improving labor protection reduces the efficiency of labor investment in labor-intensive enterprises. Improvements in labor protection also cause over-employment, especially in state-owned enterprises. Further tests suggest that labor protection affects the expansion of employees in different ways in state-owned and private enterprises. In private enterprises, labor protection promotes the adjustment and upgrading of human capital structures. We also find that labor protection can improve labor costs for labor-intensive enterprises, but that it has a negative effect on enterprise innovation. This paper provides a clear policy reference for understanding the structural distortion of human capital in the transformation and upgrading of Chinese enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates hybrid TVP-VAR-SV models suggested by Chan and Eisenstat (2018a) to identify and quantify the impact of fiscal shocks on GDP growth in Peru between 1995Q1–2018Q2. According to Bayesian criteria, the best models exhibit time-varying dynamics, but not necessarily in all parameters. Considering this result, our findings suggest that: (i) fiscal shocks are significant in the whole sample according to impulse response functions, forecast error variance decomposition and historical decomposition of GDP growth; (ii) tax revenue shocks are the least important and their impact is model dependent; (iii) expenditure shocks are relevant drivers of GDP growth; and (iv) expenditure multipliers, mainly for capital spending, have been growing over the last 20 years. We recommend constant revision of estimated fiscal multipliers and suggest that, in following years, fiscal policy in Peru should be mostly driven by capital expenditure. • Estimates hybrid TVP-VAR-SV models to measure impact of fiscal shocks on GDP growth in Peru (1995Q1-2018Q2). • Expenditure shocks are relevant drivers of GDP growth. • Tax revenue shocks are the least important and their impact is model dependent. • Expenditure multipliers, mainly for capital spending, have been growing over the last 20 years. • Several robustness exercises reinforce the validity of the main results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To better understand the long-term consequences and the possible channels (mainly, technological progress and human capital accumulation) through which a declining population may eventually sustain long-run economic growth and innovation in advanced economies, we build an endogenous, non-scale growth model with horizontal R&D activity and human capital investment. Population growth and per capita human capital accumulation are linked to each other by means of what in the paper is identified as the 'multiplicative effect' of population. As long as the strength of this effect exceeds a given positive threshold, population growth and per-capita income growth can be negatively correlated. This means that a negative rate of population growth can sustain a positive economic growth rate in the long run. • Human capital investment is embedded into an R&D-based endogenous growth model. • The law of motion of per-capita human capital includes a class-size effect. • Economic growth is simultaneously sustained by R&D– and human capital–investments. • Conditions are found for negative population growth to yield positive macro effects. • We challenge the idea that a declining population is always bad for long-run growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nonuniform irradiance on the Photovoltaic (PV) array would cause mismatch problem and decrease the generated power. To relieve the negative effects of partial shading, reconfiguring the interconnection of the PV array is a favorable solution. However, the current reconfiguration techniques are usually limited by different corresponding factors, e.g., not suit for various instantaneous shade cases, the shortage of experts' knowledge or large amounts of data, easy coverage to local optima, and the strict assumptions for application. Therefore, in this paper a unsupervised adaptive PV array reconfiguration technique is proposed with a Divide and Conquer Q-Learning (DCQL) based array reconfiguration scheme designed to decrease the influence of partial shades. To testify the performance of the proposed PV array reconfiguration scheme, mathematic theoretical evaluation and electric characteristic analyses are made and compared with those obtained by the conventional Total-Cross-Tied (TCT) arrangement, SuDoKu connection, Genetic Algorithm (GA) based scheme, as well as some lately proposed Grasshopper Optimization Algorithm (GOA), Harris Hawks Optimizer (HHO), and Lo Shu (LS) technique based reconfiguration methods. Besides, additional estimation indices, including mismatch loss, fill factor, percentage power loss and percentage power enhancement are calculated with substantial analyses and comparisons. Subsequently, the application of the proposed scheme in real-time conditions is evaluated, with energy saving and income analysis estimated in comparison with other eminent challenger reconfiguration schemes. At last, a comprehensive qualitative comparison assessment, with respect to dispersion ability under partial shading conditions (PSC), sensor requirement, wiring complexity and capital investment is carried out and proves the versatility of proposed methodology. • States, actions and rewards are designed in the Q-Learning based reconfiguration. • The combination of divide and conquer principle fastens the decision making process. • The proposed reconfiguration is estimated better performance through variety contrasts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Virtualization and Cloud Computing are terminologies which are often used interchangeably within organizations largely due to the fact that, modern IT trends justify that the 'Cloud' is an inevitable and extremely lucrative technology which will have to be adopted for uninterrupted business continuity and better manageability. This paper attempts to draw the boundaries, whereby infrastructure project managers should consider staying with a virtualized infrastructure instead of stepping into the cloud. Reduced capital Expenditures (CapEx), Operational expenditures (OpEx), Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and Infrastructure availability are some of the major factors that have been considered, from a project manager's perspective, while discussing the content presented in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This paper proposes a unified fundamental theory that combines both pedestrian evacuation for enclosure space like rooms and traffic evacuation for open space like cities into a single set of relationships. • This paper illustrated how evacuation clearance time might vary based on capital investment in planning, construction, and operational management strategies. • The fundamental framework described here can be used as a starting point for practice applications to conceptualize the relative costs and benefits between clearance time benefit and monetary investment. Evacuations, a critical and widely used emergency response action, vary widely in terms of their scale, scope, urgency and level of organization. While they differ from event to event, history shows that there are a small set of variables, inherent to all evacuations, that largely govern their effectiveness. In this paper, these fundamental variables are described from a theoretical perspective to illustrate how factors of evacuation demand and supply affect clearance time and how they can also be used to relate evacuation planning to concepts of risk, resiliency, and resource allocation. This work provides a basis for a general theory of evacuation processes that can be used it to conceptualize relationships like cost-benefit tradeoffs in evacuation management to improve long-range evacuation planning through a better understanding of the investment and allocation of resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we describe a case-study exploring the use of 600 MW of power from New Zealand's Manapouri Power Station to produce hydrogen for export via water electrolysis. Three H 2 carriers were considered: liquid H 2 , ammonia, and toluene hydrogenation/methylcyclohexane dehydrogenation. Processes were simulated in Aspen's HYSYS for each of the carriers to determine their associated energy and annualised capital expenditure costs. We found that the total capital investment for all carriers was surprisingly consistent, but with quite different splits between the electrolysis and carrier formation plants. Based on our analysis the energy availability for liquid H 2 ranged from 53.9 to 60.7% depending on the energy cost associated with cryogenic H 2 liquefaction. The energy availability for liquid ammonia was 37.5% after conversion back to H 2 , or 53.6% if the ammonia can be used directly as a fuel. For toluene/methylcyclohexane the energy availability was 41.2%. The total of the electricity and annualised capital costs per kg of H 2 ranged from NZ$5.63 to NZ$6.43 for liquid H 2 , NZ$6.24 to NZ$8.91 for ammonia and was NZ$7.86 for toluene/methylcyclohexane, using a net electricity cost of NZ$70/MWh. The cost of hydrogen (or energy in the case of direct use ammonia) was more strongly influenced by the efficiency of energy retention than on capital investment, as the electricity costs contributed approximately two thirds of total costs. In the long-term, liquid hydrogen looks to be the most versatile H 2 carrier, but significant infrastructure investment is required. • Capital costs of large-scale hydrogen carrier formation plants estimated. • Liquid hydrogen, ammonia and methylcyclohexane carrier systems compared. • Combined cost of electrolysis and carrier formation plants similar: from NZ$1.85 to $2.04 billion for a power envelope of 600 MW. • Energy efficiency of carrier system determines final cost of hydrogen energy. • Efficiency of ammonia comparable to liquid hydrogen, but only for direct use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Socio-economic (job and education) background shapes perceived efficacy. • Agents underestimate the probability of intergenerational mobility. • We build a theoretical model to capture macroeconomic implications of such beliefs. • Biases may influence under confident parents to over invest in education. • The biases may lower income inequality. This paper introduces perceived self-efficacy beliefs in an overlapping generations model and studies the effects of behavioral anomalies on human capital investments and aggregate inequality. These beliefs are not inherent but based on a person's socio-economic background. Ex ante children are homogeneous, but parents are biased about the returns to their children's education. Based on parental education and job status, parents may be over or under confident but otherwise, they are rational. We witness spillover effects that shift the incentives to educate children from the pessimistic parents to unbiased parents. Biases may induce or hinder investment. Over investment by one parent type may even crowd-out investments of other parent types. We find interesting effects of biases on the aggregate economy when parental warm glow is not low. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a hybrid two-stage robustness approach to portfolio construction under data uncertainty. In the first stage, a stock's efficiency performance from candidate stocks is assessed and selected using an integrated dynamic slack-based measure data envelopment analysis model. We discuss the stability of efficiency estimates using the leave-one-out method. In the second stage, a "robust" stable and scaled mean-variance-Entropic Value-at-Risk model is used to determine the optimal weights allocated to qualified stocks in the presence of proportional transaction costs. The proposed method reduces computational complexity, increases robustness, and provides a comprehensive evaluation of stocks under different financial decisions, thereby increasing conservatism in the investment process. We demonstrate the applicability of the proposed hybrid two-stage approach to stock data from the Shenzhen and Shanghai Stock Exchanges. Results show that with increasing required returns, the proposed method improves the capital amount for investment and lowers transaction costs at the expense of additional risk. The study concludes by comparing the computational performance of the proposed approach to that of existing methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The central environmental protection inspection is an institutional innovation in China that aims to supervise enterprises by monitoring government environmental enforcement. This paper examines the effectiveness of central environmental protection inspection in improving enterprise environmental performance by using a quasi-natural experiment of the first round of central environmental protection inspection. The study reveals that the central environmental protection inspection improves enterprise environmental performance by strengthening local government environmental enforcement and environmental attention. This is evidenced by the increase in enterprise environmental capital expenditure and the decrease in pollution discharge fees. The impact of central environmental protection inspection on enterprise environmental performance is strengthened by local governments' environmental regulation and environmental fiscal expenditure, as well as by public participation. Under the pressure of central environmental protection inspection, heavily polluting enterprises engage in production process improvement and R&D investment, which can improve their economic performance. This can ultimately lead to a competitive advantage for enterprises, promoting a win-win situation for both environmental and economic performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the methodological assumptions of a logistic regression model and presents an example of the use of this type of models to assess the factors determining investment decisions of agricultural enterprises. The aim of the study was to identify and evaluate the factors influencing the decisions of agricultural enterprises in Central Pomerania with respect to tangible investments using the logistic regression model. The results of the research proved that the probability of making tangible investments by agricultural enterprises in Central Pomerania is influenced by financial factors: the structure of the use of capital expenditure (x 1 , x 4); use of traditional sources of financing (x 5 , x 6 , x 8); use of alternative sources of financing (x 13); variable combining the use of traditional and alternative sources of financing (x 14), as well as non-financial factors: characteristics of the enterprise (x 17) and behavioral aspects (x 18). It was also established that financial factors have a greater impact on the development of tangible investments in agricultural enterprises in Central Pomerania than non-financial factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The designs of vapor-recompression distillation columns for the ethylene-ethane separation with high or low pressures in the auxiliary condenser are compared. • High pressure reduces refrigeration cost in the condenser but increases compressor cost. • The high-pressure design has 11% lower total energy cost but requires more capital investment. • The return on investment is quite attractive. A recent paper studied the separation of ethylene and ethane using several types of distillation systems in which cryogenic cooling is required. The economics of a conventional column using a very low-temperature expensive refrigerant in the condenser were compared with several configurations using process compressors. The alternative configurations involve the pressure in the auxiliary condenser and the fraction of the column overhead vapor sent through the compressor. Low pressure in the condenser requires a very low-temperature expensive refrigerant but has lower compressor costs. The purpose of this paper is to show that all of the vapor from the column should be compressed and then split, with some going to the reboiler and the rest going to an auxiliary condenser that operates at high pressure so that a higher-temperature less-expensive refrigerant can be used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Blue Growth is the creation of economic activity and jobs at sea, while multiple use of space makes efficient use of the available sea area by combining industries. Clearly there are many combinations and many value propositions. However, most technologies to date are considered blue sky concepts, with little robust techno-economic analysis demonstrating profitability. The paper begins by providing a comprehensive review of Blue Growth and multi-use in Blue Growth; both in policy as well as the wide range of current technologies, including ocean energy, offshore wind energy, offshore aquaculture and desalination. The Maribe H2020 project provides the vehicle for the research element of the paper. The major contribution is a new methodology for selecting, filtering, developing and ranking business propositions for multiple-use of space (MUS) and multi-use platforms (MUP). Application of the method for the first time identified three case studies where Blue Growth combination projects can be economically viable, with attractive internal rate of return (IRRs). Results presented for the case studies report standard investment metrics and show the relative contribution of each product (energy, food, water) to the system profitability, as well as socio-economic impact. Existing companies were fully engaged in the process. Co-creation between sector experts and industry led to both improved business value propositions and robust assessment of investment readiness. In contrast to the presumption that large scale platforms are commercially attractive, the highest ranking case study companies required smaller capital expenditure (CAPEX) and operated in niche subsectors. In conclusion, the positive economic performance of the case studies should provide confidence for the EC as well as investors that MUS and MUP have viable economic futures leading towards commercialisation. The macro and micro assessment methods will be particularly useful in other Blue Economy contexts and in other multiple product contexts. Highlights • A comprehensive history of multiple use of space blue growth. • New metrics for comparing salmon to megawatts are presented. • Method and criteria for ranking potential investments in blue growth business models. • Profitable case studies described involving electricity, water, mussels and fish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Exergy-based methods are powerful tools for developing, evaluating, understanding, and improving energy conversion systems. This paper deals with integrated advanced exergy-based evaluations. In addition to conventional methods, advanced exergy-based analyses consider (a) the interactions among components of the overall system, and (b) the real potential for improving each important system component. The main role of an advanced analysis is to provide energy conversion system designers and operators with information useful for improving the design and operation of such systems. Splitting the exergy destruction, the capital investment cost, and the component-related environmental impact associated with each single component of an energy conversion system into endogenous/exogenous and avoidable/unavoidable parts and using a further splitting of the exogenous exergy destruction improves (a) our understanding of the processes that take place, and (b) the quality of the conclusions for improvement obtained from the analysis. This paper discusses the main features and some recent developments in the area of advanced exergy-based methods. Application of the method to a simple air refrigeration machine confirms the correctness of the approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The paper examines the interlinkage between capital investment (CAPEX), efficiency in working capital management (WCM), managerial ability (MA), and firm performance in the transportation and logistics industry in the US from 1988 to 2018 using a sample of 3,811 firm-year observations. • The study highlights the positive relationship between managerial ability and firm performance, as well as the positive associations between managerial ability and both CAPEX and WCM efficiency. It also reveals that the relationships between managerial ability and firm performance are mediated through enhanced CAPEX and efficient WCM. • It is demonstrated that, managers with higher ability strike a balance between short-term working capital investments and long-term capital investments, leading to higher firm performance. • It is further shown that, effective WCM is crucial in the capital-intensive transportation and logistics industry, as it optimizes the use of capital assets, reduces the need for external financing, and improves profitability and firm performance. This paper studies the interlinkage between capital investment, efficiency in working capital management, managerial ability, and firm performance, for a sample of transportation and logistics firms from US between the period 1988 to 2018. Our results indicate that able managers increase the investment in CAPEX and also concurrently engage in more efficient working capital management. We also show these managers help achieve greater firm performance through visible mediation effects of enhanced CAPEX and optimum use of working capital. We posit that managers with higher ability are in continuous pursual of optimizing firm performance, which motivates them to engage in higher levels of CAPEX vide a trade-off with short-term investment in working capital. Given the challenges and costs of raising external funds, able managers contemporaneously engage in more efficient working capital management to release excess working capital funds, and utilize them for enhancing CAPEX levels. Additionally, we show that the efficiency in working capital management emanates from efficiency in managing inventory, managing receivables as well as managing payables simultaneously. Our results are robust and remains unaltered after controlling for several firm-specific and macroeconomic parameters as well as potential endogeneity concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We study how perceived automation risks affect workers' intention to invest in human capital. • We show that fear of automation is positively correlated with retraining intentions. • Our results hold when controlling for locus of control, risk preferences and impatience. Robotics and artificial intelligence are transforming jobs and career paths, and equipping workers with the ability to gain new skills has become a strategic policy imperative. Previous studies showed that investment in human capital depends on locus of control, risk preferences and impatience. Yet in a changing world of work, the perceived risk of being replaced by a machine or an algorithm might also affect workers' decisions to gain new professional skills. Using novel survey data from representative samples of working individuals in 16 countries, this paper shows that fear of automation is positively associated with workers' intentions to invest in training activities outside their workplace. This effect is robust to controlling for other known behavioural traits. We also show that fear of automation reinforces the effect that internal locus of control exerts on retraining intentions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the mid-1980s, both academics and practitioners have proposed and discussed various solutions in fuzzy capital budgeting. Based primarily on traditional capital budgeting methods, these solutions present the same problems as their respective deterministic methods: the implicit assumptions of the reinvestment rates; the possibility of multiple rates of return; and the possibility of anomalous behavior of the net present value method. This paper presents a unified solution in fuzzy capital budgeting based on modified deterministic methods proposed in the financial literature. This unified approach eliminates those problems and has the property of matching decisions on acceptance or rejection of investment projects with same life horizons and same scales and therefore maximize shareholder wealth. An insight is provided into the advantages of these investment project appraisal methods by comparing and contrasting them with traditional fuzzy methods. A comprehensive case study, based on an investment project on exploration of an oil field under both deterministic and fuzzy conditions, is included to illustrate the use of these methods. Due to the complexity of the calculations involved, new MS-Excel financial functions are developed, by using Visual Basic for Applications. The main contribution of this paper is the development of a unifying approach to capital budgeting under uncertainty that emphasizes the strengths of the modified methods, while bypassing the individual conflicts and drawbacks of the conventional capital budgeting methods. Results confirm that the proposed solution has many advantages over other capital budgeting methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the practice of pre-finance, which is very often used by airports to fund major investments, such as runways and terminals. It involves the airport charging airlines higher prices as soon as, and sometimes before, the project's construction commences, often well before it becomes operational. Generally, airlines strongly oppose pre-finance. This paper assesses pre-finance in terms of a range of different impacts. It begins by determining which airports can make use of pre-finance- only those which have market power can do so. Allocative efficiency is enhanced by pre-financing, though the impact is smaller in the case of runways subject to slot controls than when facilities are congested. An important issue concerns the distributional impacts-is the airlines' opposition to pre-finance well founded? It is shown that airlines actually lose by two mechanisms. One of these arises when different airlines and their passengers use the airport when the airport is investing and when it becomes operational. With the second, airlines lose and their customers actually gain, when slot controlled runways are pre-financed. How the airport is regulated has an impact on the incentives of the airport to pre-finance. In particular, price capped airports have an incentive to pre-finance, if allowed to by the regulator, but airports subject to light handed regulation do not seem to have strong incentives either way. The paper concludes by investigating two contrasting case studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In high-end equipment project selection, which involves high technical complexity, significant capital investment, and cross-industry applications, it is essential to involve experts from diverse fields in the decision-making process. To address the challenge of large-scale group decision-making, this paper proposes a three-way large-scale group decision-making model for triple-path consensus reaching process based on a rewards-and-punishments mechanism. The model consists of three stages. Firstly, the group consensus degree is calculated based on the initial input. If the specified threshold is not met, the consensus adjustment iteration stage is entered and decision makers are divided into three regions based on the Pareto principle. Secondly, separate calculations are conducted for the moving benefits and costs of decision makers in different regions, with the total benefits and costs used as targets for the NSGA-II algorithm. The Pareto solution set is obtained, and the solution with the least number of moving objects is selected as the three-way decision-making movement strategy. This process is repeated until the consensus threshold is reached or one of the regions is empty. Finally, based on the final adjustment results, scores are calculated for each project and a ranking is established as a selection suggestion. To demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the model, ten high-end equipment projects are taken as examples, and the sensitivity of the model is tested by adjusting the number of decision makers. In conclusion, the proposed three-way large-scale group decision-making model based on a rewards-and-punishments mechanism for triple-path consensus reaching process is an effective and feasible approach for high-end equipment project selection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decade, the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) of solar and wind energy dropped extraordinary. Within this context, this paper aims to project the capital expenditures (CAPEX) of photovoltaic plants, onshore and offshore wind turbines for 2030 and 2050 by using the experience curve theory. Based on these, LCOE for 2020, 2030 and 2050 are estimated, investigated regarding their sensitivities and compared to fossil fuel based power plants. CAPEX projections amount to 250 to 430 € 2020 /kW el (2030) and 170 to 330 € 2020 /kW el (2050) for photovoltaic plants, 940 to 1,210 € 2020 /kW el (2030) and 820 to 970 € 2020 /kW el (2050) for onshore wind turbines and 1,730 to 2,570 € 2020 /kW el (2030) and 1,420 to 2,360 € 2020 /kW el (2050) for offshore wind turbines. Based on these results the LCOE of photovoltaic plants are estimated to drop up to more than 70 % (2050), while for wind turbines reductions up to 50 % (2050) are calculated. The highest sensitivity of the LCOE was identified for a variation of the CAPEX and annual full load hours. The comparison of the LCOE with fossil fuel operated power plants showed that the considered renewable options can obtain significant lower LCOE. • CAPEX for photovoltaic drop up to 75%. • CAPEX for wind turbines decreases up to 40% (onshore) and 50% (offshore). • Photovoltaic LCOE will be the lowest in the future. • LCOE shows highest sensitivity to annual full load hours and system CAPEX. • Future LCOE based on fossil fuels will be higher than based on solar or wind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International technology spillovers have important impacts on innovation quality. In this paper, we integrate three main sources of international technology spillovers – imports, inward foreign direct investment (FDI), and outward FDI – into the framework of China's innovation quality. Accordingly, we empirically investigate the characteristics and channels of international technology spillovers that affect innovation quality. We find that, first, overall, the main sources of international technology spillovers that can significantly affect China's innovation quality focus on imports and outward FDI, especially imports, which plays a more dominant role; second, the characteristics of technology spillovers vary across different regions, that is, imports promote innovation quality more significantly in eastern and western China than in the central region, where only outward FDI affects innovation quality significantly; third, the channels of these three kinds of international technology spillovers that affect innovation quality cannot be separated from R&D capital investment and R&D personnel input. Our study not only enriches the extant literature about international technology spillovers affecting innovation quality but also sheds light on how to achieve high-quality economic development in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine the influence of investment of corporate capital, which we capture through heterogeneous company information technology utilization, on labor demand and labor income share. We find that increased investment in information technology by enterprises is associated with a general decrease in the proportion of labor income and the demand for labor. We also find that if the market power of enterprises in the industry is greater, the increase in investment of enterprise information technology capital is even less conducive to the willingness of enterprises to hire workers. Our results have implications for guidance towards corporate (information technology) investment decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This paper presents a state-of-the-art review for power transformer asset management, health assessment and remnant life methodologies. • Cost-effective and reliable transformer asset management techniques are essential to design strategic maintenance and replacement plans. • The paper reviews various methods used in condition assessment major modules: fault diagnostic module, reliability assessment module and life management module. • In the fault diagnostic module, fault diagnostic methods according to individual transformer components have been introduced. • Reliability assessment using health index is utilized to evaluate the overall health condition of the transformer. Owing to their vital function and high cost, oil-immersed power transformers represent key links in electricity grids. While extensive effort has been invested by industry in developing various condition monitoring and fault diagnosis apparatuses, it is not economically feasible to apply rigorous inspection and extensive testing to all power transformer fleets in the network. The fundamental purpose of asset management is to balance cost and reliability of the system. Maintaining the reliability of power transformers involves regular condition monitoring, fault diagnosis and overall health assessment. In addition, estimating the remnant life of power transformers can help asset managers plan capital investments. By reviewing the methods used for power transformer asset management, assets integrity team can decide the most suitable maintenance strategy for each transformer in the network. This paper is aimed to present state-of-the-art review for power transformer asset management, health assessment and remnant life methodologies. While many review papers on transformer fault diagnosis have been published in the literature, not much attention was given to present a state-of-the-art review on the three modules of the transformer asset managements that include fault diagnosis, reliability assessment and life management modules. These three modules are comprehensively presented in this paper that also presents future challenges and improvement in this field of research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing literature on the link between government expenditure and economic growth shows mixed results. This paper, while analysing the impact of government expenditure on economic growth using the ARDL framework, also investigates whether the difference in data types is one of the reasons for the conflicting findings reported in the literature about Wagner's law and Keynesian hypothesis. We use Sri Lanka as a case study for this analysis and use three different forms of model specifications at the aggregate and disaggregated (sectoral) levels. Results indicate that both Wagner's and Keynesian's propositions are supported by the Sri Lankan data in the long-run for all three model specifications and the results are inconclusive in the short-run. This suggests that Wagner's law and Keynesian hypothesis are sensitive to the data type used and the results could be different depending on whether the analysis is made in the short-run or long-run. Capital and recurrent expenditures are found to have a positive effect on economic growth in the short-run as well as long-run. At the disaggregated level, expenditure on agriculture and health positively impact economic growth in the long-run, while welfare expenditure has a negative effect. These findings provide important insights for policymakers to consider when allocating sectoral level expenditure budget. This study also provides insights on allocating government expenditure towards achieving United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals which countries across the globe are aiming to achieve by 2030. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trustworthy savings calculations are critical to convincing regulators of both the cost-effectiveness of energy efficiency program investments and their ability to defer supply-side capital investments. Today’s methods for measurement and verification (M&V) of energy savings constitute a significant portion of the total costs of energy efficiency programs. They also require time-consuming data acquisition. A spectrum of savings calculation approaches is used, with some relying more heavily on measured data and others relying more heavily on estimated, modeled, or stipulated data. The increasing availability of “smart” meters and devices that report near-real time data, combined with new analytical approaches to quantify savings, offers the potential to conduct M&V more quickly and at lower cost, with comparable or improved accuracy. Commercial energy management and information systems (EMIS) technologies are beginning to offer these ‘M&V 2.0′ capabilities, and program administrators want to understand how they might assist programs in quickly and accurately measuring energy savings. This paper presents the results of recent testing of the ability to use automation to streamline the M&V process. In this paper, we apply an automated whole-building M&V tool to historic data sets from energy efficiency programs to begin to explore the accuracy, cost, and time trade-offs between more traditional M&V, and these emerging streamlined methods that use high-resolution energy data and automated computational intelligence. For the data sets studied we evaluate the fraction of buildings that are well suited to automated baseline characterization, the uncertainty in gross savings that is due to M&V 2.0 tools’ model error, and indications of labor time savings, and how the automated savings results compare to prior, traditionally determined savings results. The results show that 70% of the buildings were well suited to the automated approach. In a majority of the cases (80%) savings and uncertainties for each individual building were quantified to levels above the criteria in ASHRAE Guideline 14. In addition the findings suggest that M&V 2.0 methods may also offer time-savings relative to traditional approaches. Finally we discuss the implications of these findings relative to the potential evolution of M&V, and pilots currently being launched to test how M&V automation can be integrated into ratepayer-funded programs and professional implementation and evaluation practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today solar power is still dominantly presented to be expensive source of electricity. However, the profitability of solar and other electricity generation technologies is typically evaluated with the Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) approach. This paper questions the traditional investment evaluation logics of power production (LCOE) in the interesting case of rooftop PVs and based on customer value generation logics presents a new approach for evaluating the profitability of rooftop PV investments. The approach recognizes the value that PVs produce to real estate owners and utilize basic real estate investment models to evaluate the profitability of PVs. The results imply that, if PVs are considered as a part of the underlying property, rooftop PV systems are already today profitable in many European cities and can provide substantial returns on investment for property owners. More interestingly, the results imply that rooftop PV investments are most profitable in the dense urban cores instead of more remote (industrial) locations, and thus the current trend of urbanization seems to further strengthen the profitability of rooftop solar power. This paper points out that spatial locations drive the economic analysis of real estate, and thus it is likely that it will drive the economic analysis of decentralized on-site energy investments as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the data available in the bibliography relative to most important economical factors in an offshore wind farm, including the acquisition/installation of wind turbines and foundations, electrical infrastructure, design and project management, and operation/maintenance. These data are necessary to carry out any profitability analysis, or optimization procedure. In order to establish a common reference, prices have been translated into a unique currency and taken to the present year. Taking into account these considerations, the paper presents an estimation of the different costs as a function of the farm size. Finally, the main cost drivers affecting the capital and operating expenditures are presented and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As many countries increase their installed offshore wind capacity, floating offshore wind turbines (FOWTs) are critical to gaining access to deep-water resources where fixed-bottom turbines would not be economically feasible to install. The levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of FOWTs must be minimized to ensure competitiveness with traditional power sources. Innovative substructure designs and advanced control methods can help decrease the LCOE of FOWTs by increasing annual energy production (AEP) and the turbine's lifetime. LCOE can also be reduced by minimizing capital expenditures and operation and maintenance costs. The novel SpiderFLOAT substructure described in this paper decreases the LCOE through its light-weight and easy-to-manufacture design while providing unique opportunities for platform actuation. Specifically, this paper details the design and testing of a buoyancy can ballast controller to achieve a desired platform pitch angle for increasing AEP while also reducing tower-base fatigue loads and maintaining safe operation. The proposed buoyancy can ballast control is shown to increase AEP by 1.1%, reduce tower-base bending damage equivalent loads (DELs) by up to nearly 9%, reduce maximum platform pitch angles, and not interfere with the baseline controller. The robustness of the proposed controller is tested for misaligned wind and wave direction cases and similarly yields promising performance in the metrics of interest. • Floating offshore wind turbine platform control to augment wind turbine controller for a lightweight semi-submersible. • Low-bandwidth buoyancy can ballast control for power increase and load reduction. • Includes robustness check for misaligned wind and wave directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data centers have attracted increasing attention worldwide over the last decades due to their high energy consumption. Cooling accounts for about 30–40% of the total energy consumption of data centers. High-temperature data centers could save large amounts of cooling energy by changing their cooling mechanism. More effective use of "free cooling" is the basic and effective means for high-temperature data centers to reduce cooling energy consumption. It is possible to build chiller-less or even chiller-free data centers. They require less capital investment for cooling and allow more hours of "free cooling". However, a few essential concerns need to be addressed before the wide application of high-temperature data centers, particularly the technical bottlenecks and the reliability and performance of servers and IT equipment. Though many reviews on data centers exist in the existing research, a systematic review of high-temperature data centers, particularly on the above essential concerns, is still unavailable. This paper is intended to fill in these gaps and provide a comprehensive review of these critical aspects. The main benefits and the major bottlenecks for implementing high-temperature data centers as well as the existing efforts and latest technologies to tackle the bottlenecks are categorized and analyzed systematically. In addition, a through review of the main temperature-sensitive IT components (e.g., hard disk drives and CPU) is done, and their current states and potential solutions are analyzed. Finally, the paper elaborates on future perspectives for the development and applications of the high-temperature data center. [Display omitted] • A comprehensive review of high-temperature data center development is done. • Bottlenecks and benefits for implementing high-temperature data centers are analyzed. • Existing efforts and latest technologies to tackle the bottlenecks are analyzed. • A review of temperature-sensitive IT components & technology development is given. • Future perspectives for high-temperature data center development are elaborated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the growing global energy demand and increasingly limited availability of conventional or easy-to-produce crude oils, extensive attention is being paid to the exploitation of unconventional heavy and extra-heavy oils. However, their inherent properties, characterized by high viscosity and poor mobility, coupled with the complex reservoir configuration, make the desired recovery processes very challenging. Although several in-situ recovery techniques have been employed in oil reservoirs worldwide, most of them are still suffering from low sweep and displacement efficiencies, high capital investment, potential formation damage and negative environmental footprints. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive review of the existing in-situ heavy oil recovery techniques, which fall into three categories of thermal injection, chemical injection and gas injection. Different aspects including the fundamental principles, main features, applicability, and limitations of these recovery processes are elaborated sequentially to illustrate the current technology status. Underlying mechanisms causing the relatively low recovery factors will also be pinpointed. Furthermore, this paper focuses on the technology using novel and active catalysts for simultaneous heavy oil upgrading and recovery, especially in the case of metallic nanocatalysts. Rationales, advantages and challenges regarding this in-situ catalytic upgrading technology will be extensively described for their potential implementation in fields. It is noteworthy that many recovery techniques are still limited to the laboratory scale with needs for further investigations. Therefore, this paper also covers the evaluation standards and analytical methodologies of heavy and extra-heavy oil recovery to establish experimental screening criteria. In the end, economic and environmental aspects of the in-situ catalytic upgrading technology have been briefly discussed. The objective of this review is to present a wide range of expertise related to the in-situ heavy oil recovery processes, and to introduce the in-situ catalytic upgrading technology as an effective and environmental friendly heavy oil recovery process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural electrification requires high initial capital investments per capita due to its low energy demand and population density. These factors result in a higher cost of electricity than that for urban consumers. Although the solution to the majority of rural electrification financial challenges are with government policymakers, it is equally important for rural electrification project implementers to understand the technical challenges and identify any cost reduction potential. This paper proposes and compares a diverse set of standalone electrification strategies for a variety of consumer load types in the Sdakeni rural area in the Eastern Cape Province in South Africa. The aim of this research is to compare the electrification strategies based on: cost, efficiency, performance, equipment utilization factor, excess electricity produced etc. Based on the findings from the comparison, the paper will provide insight into suitability of such strategies and act as a guideline for balancing cost optimization process and design robustness of such systems. It will also provide recommendations on future research along this line which would include aspects that could not be covered in this work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Level of (bio)process intensification is proportional to thermodynamic driving force. • Equipment size is reciprocal to increased driving force of industrial processes. • Thermodynamic work (energy, materials use) increases quadratically with driving force. • Sustainable (bio)economic development needs reduction of auxiliaries more than scale reduction of process equipment or investment. Development of affordable and low carbon biobased manufacturing depends critically on strategies that reduce cost and emission profiles. This paper indicates that efforts around the reduction of capital costs by intensification of process equipment need to be carefully weighed against the inherently fast increasing financial and climate costs of driving forces used for the intensification. The fundamental relation between capital expenditures (CAPEX) and operational expenditures (OPEX) of intensified and non-intensified biobased processes and their financial and climatic impacts are emphasized and provisionally explored for a few industrial processes. General learnings flag the importance in particular of OPEX minimisation for sustainable bio-economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public support schemes are typically targeted towards capital investments. However, the targeting of digitization investments might not only be a missed opportunity to increase the usage of state-of-the-art digital services in the economy, but might even lower the uptake thereof. This paper exploits variation in the eligibility and the size of potential investment subsidies of German firms in order to analyse the relationship with the firms' propensity to adopt cloud services. Our empirical results are in line with the hypothesis that capital investment schemes lower the use of cloud services by firms: the higher the potential subsidy for investments, the lower the incentive for firms to adopt cloud services. We consider this finding an unintended policy effect which is highly relevant for policy makers, as the adoption of cloud services has been linked to various benefits on the firm as well as on the aggregate economy level. • Investment subsidies lower the cost of IT investments, distorting the market of firm digitization. • Firms eligible for investment funding have a lower probability to use cloud services. • The higher the potential investment support, the lower the propensity of firms to adopt cloud services. • Due to economic benefits of cloud computing, public investment schemes do not support today's digitization needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• DR prioritizes reducing peak demand and spillages over participating in the reserves market. • DR can reduce up to 12% of total system costs, mainly from peaking plant investment needs. • Although DHW offer more flexibility, H&C systems are more relevant for reserves. • DR is prepared to provide more than 50% of total reserve needs. • Overestimating DR needs, increases system emissions. Balancing markets will become more and more relevant with the increased volatility in the electricity system due to the increase in the renewable quota. New policies are paving the way for customers flexibility participation as demand response in reserve products. This paper contributes with an assessment of the impact of demand response participation in the reserve market when planning the electricity system's operation and investment in new technologies. The model used has been conveniently upgraded and a set of scenarios have been raised to conduct the analysis. The residential and services sectors' consumption for heating, cooling, hot water, and electric vehicles are considered as sources of flexibility. Each one has their own modeling to represent their nature. Main findings show that demand response receives and offers more benefits for the system on the wholesale market than in balancing services, although their participation in them is quite relevant. This is due to the decrease in firm capacity investment needs thanks to reducing systems' peak technologies and the decrease of spillages from renewables. Additionally, increasing demand response percentages in the systems lead to cost reduction. However, there is a limitation associated with an increase of CO2 emissions due to the usage of existing polluting technologies to avoid investments in storages. Finally, flexibility providers are compared to determine their flexible capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This study addresses the challenging deployment of high-capacity networks while considering the cost constraints. It has introduced a 2D OCDMA-PON system that optimizes network performance and cost-effectiveness. Further, the proposed 2D OCDMA-PON supports a high number ∼ 128 of subscribers to demonstrate an enhancement in the network capacity. • The paper conducts CapEx analysis by comparing the proposed OCDMA-PON with the conventional approaches. The results demonstrate a substantial cost reduction in deploying OCDMA-PON, making it cost-effective selection. • A novel time delay unit are integrated in OCDMA-PON architecture to reduce the CapEx allied with long-span fiber optic media for the spatial decoding. This optimization helps in cost reductions, reduce interference, and improve the efficiency/performance e of the OCDMA systems by increasing the number of users to 128, showing excellent and secured results. The deployment of high-capacity transport networks while maintaining strict cost constraints is a formidable challenge for network operators in the era of networks beyond 5G (B5G) and 6G. This work explores the use of a 2D spectral-spatial optical code division multiple access (OCDMA) passive optical network (PON). It optimizes the conventional architecture to minimize the cost of deployment while maintaining desirable transmission capacity. Optimization is performed by developing a PON architecture with 2D double-weight zero cross-correlation (DW-ZCC) code that is able to support high capacity through ideal auto and cross-correlation properties. Furthermore, time delay units are employed after the spectral and spatial encoding process to minimize the use of long-span parallel optical fiber path and reduce the overall cost of deployment. Simulation analysis demonstrates that the proposed system is able to support 128 subscribers, each communicating at 10 Gbps data over a system sensitivity of approximately −21 dB. Capital expenditure (CapEx) analysis also demonstrates the effectiveness of the system optimization and reports substantial cost cuts in deploying the proposed architecture compared with the conventional counterpart. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The capital expenditures to energy capacity ratio (capex) stands as a key competitive metric for energy storage systems. This paper presents an evaluation of this indicator for an aboveground suspended weight energy storage system. For the first time, an analytical foundational correlation was found between capital expenditures of gravity energy storage, its energy capacity, and storage power. The correlation reveals that capex can be expressed as the sum of three components: one inversely proportional to discharge duration, another inversely proportional to the square root of energy capacity, and a constant term. By using established construction and power element prices the study demonstrates that capex can be reduced to less than 600 $/kW·h for discharge durations of 4 h or more, and can decrease to nearly 450 $/kW·h for a 10-h discharge duration. Employing the computed capex an evaluation of the total cost of ownership was conducted and juxtaposed with lithium-ion energy storage. The gains from adopting gravity technology become significant starting from the initial replacement of degraded Li-ion batteries. This scenario results in nearly a twofold savings in the ownership cost of gravity energy storage system over a 20-year operational span with further prospects for enhanced economic benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The industrial sector has significantly contributed to global climate change and urban air pollution while driving economic development. This paper takes the synergistic CO2 and SO2 emission reduction in China's industrial sector as an entry point quantifies the synergistic CO2 and SO2 emission reduction effect using the Kaya extension model and analyzes the synergistic emission reduction expansion mechanism in depth. It is found that the synergistic effect of CO2 and SO2 in the industrial sector is prevalent in most provinces in China. Every 10,000 tons of CO2 emission reduction leads to 1600 tons of SO2 emission reduction. Regional heterogeneity also clarifies that there are differences in synergistic emission reduction among different provinces, with most regions having a significant positive effect of synergistic emission reduction, while a small number of regions have an inverse effect, and direct SO2 reduction measures should be considered separately. The interaction effect analysis found that energy efficiency improvement in the industrial sector is the critical path to synergistic effect enhancement. At the same time, R&D expenditure and fixed asset investment have a weak effect on synergistic emission reduction. The interaction of the three factors can synergize the emission reduction effect by more than twice. The study's findings can be used as a reference for China's industrial sector to achieve the goal of reducing pollution and carbon emissions and for the practice of regional synergistic emission reduction, as well as for the formulation of international synergistic emission reduction policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The destructive effects of ignoring the damage curve in the optimal cable size selection problem is investigated. • A new method is presented to determine the optimal cross-section of cables taking into account their damage curves based on variable fault clearing times. • Overcurrent relays coordination is solved during long-term planning of distribution network with network changes to achieve optimal cross-section of cables. The optimal selection of cable's cross-section in distribution networks reduces capital investment costs and network power loss. One of the important points in cable size selection process is taking the damage curve into account, which this curve depends on the type, insulation, and cross-section of cable. The cross-section should be selected in such a way that the cable can withstand short-circuit current until the fault is cleared. In conventional methods, damage curve is considered in optimal cable size selection (OCSS) process with assuming fixed times for fault clearing. In this paper, it is shown that this assumption makes two main issues: interference of cable's damage and overcurrent relay's characteristic curves in some branches, and unnecessary increase in capital investment costs in other branches. To overcome these challenges, a new method is proposed for solving OCSS problem using overcurrent relays coordination as sub-problem to obtain variable fault clearing times. The relays are coordinated with the worst-case conditions to ensure that network changes will not affect the results of OCSS in future. The results show the effectiveness of proposed method with the aim of capital investment costs reduction, and also interfering prevention between the cables damage and overcurrent relays characteristic curves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investments into new energy solution systems, and for example into producing carbon-neutral fuels, are increasing, but tools for the capital investments' feasibility studies are limited. Various contemporaneous attempts to reduce the dependence on fossil energy sources are needed, and a power-to-x (P2X) solution, which is part of the hydrogen economy, can be seen as one opportunity. However, many hydrogen economy solutions have not yet been proven to be economically profitable, but they could be if the investment projects were considered from a broader perspective than from company level and an economic perspective. In previous research, a three-stage economic and technology emphasized feasibility study (FS) framework has been created, and the early results indicate that the P2X investments can meet economic feasibility with over 12% of the investor IRR, and could offer profitable solutions towards a carbon-neutral future. However, the framework did not recognize the full potential of P2X through sustainability, and therefore a new extended version of the framework is needed. The objective of the paper is to create an expanded sustainable feasibility study (SFS) framework from the FS framework to support the P2X investments. As a result, an SFS framework is created, considering the investment projects' feasibility beyond the economic perspective by adding all three dimensions of sustainability: economic, environmental, and social. The three stages of the framework are ecosystem profiling, business model description, and profitability modelling. This paper was made by utilizing the design science research (DSR) methodology and a literature review. Sustainable feasibility study (SFS) framework. [Display omitted] • SFS framework considers the investment projects' feasibility beyond economic perspective: incl. dimensions of sustainability. • The three stages of the SFS framework are ecosystem profiling, business model description, and profitability modelling. • P2X investment projects should study the ecosystem to support realizing the benefits of sustainability and circular economy. • P2X investment projects can meet economic feasibility with over 12% of the investor IRR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the relationship between competition and investment in the wireless industry from a dynamic perspective. Using firm level data and instrumental variable estimation strategy, it finds that the relationship is inverted-U shaped. The investment maximising intensity of competition is reached when operators' gross profits represent 37 or 40 per cent of their revenues, depending on whether capital expenditures are normalised by the number of subscribers. This finding means that investment increases with competition as long as operators' profits are above the thresholds of 37 or 40 per cent of their revenues. Under these thresholds, there is a tradeoff between competition and investment. The paper also finds a significant long run effect of competition on investment which amplifies the short run effect by a factor of 3–4. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional olefins production is heavily dependent on oil. In the background of the scarcity of oil and richness of coal in China, olefins production from coal has been attracting more attention of the chemical process industry. The first coal based methanol-to-olefins (CMTO) plant has been commercialized in China. For shorter process route and lower capital cost, Fischer–Fropsch has been put forward in the last few years. The coal based Fischer–Tropsch-to-olefins (CFTO) process is designed in this paper and then its techno-economic and environmental performance was detailed studied in this paper, in comparison with the CMTO. Results show that at the present olefins selectivity, the CFTO suffers from relative lower energy efficiency and higher CO 2 emissions. In economic aspect, the capital investment and product cost of the CFTO are roughly equivalent to that of the CMTO. Although the conversion route of the CFTO is shorter, its techno-economic performance is still inferior to that of the CMTO. It is also found that increase of olefins selectivity by cracking oil or decrease of CO 2 selectivity by improving catalyst could significantly improve the performance of the CFTO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although previous studies have intensively demonstrated the negative impact of pollution on human capital, few studies have explored the opposite dynamic: whether and how investment in human capital affects pollution. In this paper, we empirically examine the effect of human capital improvement on firms' industrial emissions. We exploit an expanded college enrollment program in China that resulted in a surge in college-educated workers and use a difference-in-differences (DD) strategy to deal with identification. We rely on a unique firm-level dataset that contains comprehensive information on firms' emissions records. We find that investment in human capital significantly and substantially reduces firms' emissions, and the underlying channels are firms' industrial upgrading, use of cleaner energy during the production process, and better compliance with environmental regulations. Our findings document an important but unanticipated benefit of human capital improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]