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Purpose The aim of this paper is to study the association between health consciousness, health belief model and intention to engage in healthy activities in addition to use restaurants. Design/methodology/approach An electronic questionnaire was distributed through social media and university website including questions on demographic variables and Likert scaled aspects of health consciousness, health belief model and behavioral intention to practice healthy habits and use fast-food restaurants. Findings A total of 92 Palestinian adults participated in this study. Age 28.5 ± 9.7 years. Of the studied group, 28.6% were males, body mass index = 24.4 ± 4.1 kg/m2. Average health consciousness was 12.3 ± 3.1, health belief model (susceptibility = 10.4 ± 6.8, severity = 12.7 ± 7.2, benefit = 28.1 ± 5.3 and barriers = 17.8 ± 6.8) and for behavioral intention = 21.1 ± 6.4. In final regression models, only benefit was significantly associated with health consciousness (B = 0.18 ± 0.07, p = 0.012) and behavioral intention B = 0.26 ± 0.13, p = 0.05). Only barrier and severity were associated significantly with number of using restaurants weekly (0.04 ± 0.02, p = 0.03) and (0.05 ± 0.02, p = 0.004), respectively. Research limitations/implications Health belief model partially explained use of restaurants and healthy lifestyle among Palestinians. This is a cross-sectional design and future clinical trials are needed. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to address the role of health belief model and health consciousness in improving dietary style and habits.

Small-scale islanded microgrid technology has the potential to utilize renewable sources for electrification in extreme areas where conventional transmission of power is difficult. But due to the absence of a utility grid in the islanded operation, voltage and frequency control becomes the major concern. Instead of using a centralized large battery storage system, electric vehicle- (EV-) based distributed energy storage may provide a dynamic and much cheaper energy storage solution for small-scale systems in the long run. The only issue is to effectively manage the dynamics of EV penetration for achieving the overall control in the islanded system. To address the same issue, this paper proposes a novel segregation-based inverter control structure for an islanded microgrid while employing EVs as an energy storage system, thus eliminating the need for centralized storage. The designed integrated control structure simultaneously attends to the voltage and frequency regulation need of the system, overcoming the issue of control lag, along with energy storage and management aspects in the microgrid operation for controlling the power flow under various practical scenarios. Extensive experimental studies are performed in MATLAB/SIMULINK environment, which indicates that the proposed integrated control structure gives a satisfactory performance under various scenarios encompassing load variation, renewable energy uncertainties, and EV dynamics in comparison with conventional control schemes employed in the islanded microgrid.

Microgrid (MG) technology is essential for power systems to be more resilient and to make use of natural energy resources to fulfill our electricity demand. MG generally operates in grid-connected and isolated mode. The crucial part of MG control is during the transition between these two modes which is called synchronize transition control (STC). In this paper, a novel reference input generation mechanism (RIGM) based control technique is proposed for improving the performance of MG during the transition from isolated mode to grid-connected mode. Extensive simulation-based studies are performed in MATLAB/SIMULINK environment to validate the effectiveness of the proposed control technique and for comparison with conventional control. Results show that the proposed technique improves the transition time performance of MG. Further, a processor in the loop (PIL) validation of the proposed control strategy has been successfully carried out using a TI C2000 DSP TMS320F28335 microcontroller.

In the present work new biocidal polymers were synthesized based on linear poly(hydroxy styrene) and poly(hydroxy styrene co-2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate). The polymer and the copolymer were modified by chloroacetylation with chloroacetyl chloride and were further modified by quaternization with triethylamine, triphenylphosphine, and tributylphosphine. The mod- ified polymers, and copolymers were characterized by elemental analyses, IR, and 1 H-NMR. The biocidal activities of the compounds were evaluated against E. coli, Staph. aureus, P. aeruginosa, Serratia sp, Kelbsiella sp. and C. albicans. The modi- fied polymers and copolymers had biocidal activity. The toxicity analysis of the most active polymers or co-polymers to Artemia salina was also determined. It differed according to the polymer or co-polymer and its concentration.