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Author(s): Kinoshita, Shotaro; Cortright, Kelley; Crawford, Allison; Mizuno, Yuya; Yoshida, Kazunari; Hilty, Donald; Guinart, Daniel; Torous, John; Correll, Christoph U; Castle, David J; Rocha, Deyvis; Yang, Yuan; Xiang, Yu-Tao; Kolbaek, Pernille; Dines, David; ElShami, Mohammad; Jain, Prakhar; Kallivayalil, Roy; Solmi, Marco; Favaro, Angela; Veronese, Nicola; Seedat, Soraya; Shin, Sangho; Salazar de Pablo, Gonzalo; Chang, Chun-Hung; Su, Kuan-Pin; Karas, Hakan; Kane, John M; Yellowlees, Peter; Kishimoto, Taishiro | Abstract: BackgroundDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of telemedicine as a way to reduce COVID-19 infections was noted and consequently deregulated. However, the degree of telemedicine regulation varies from country to country, which may alter the widespread use of telemedicine. This study aimed to clarify the telepsychiatry regulations for each collaborating country/region before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.MethodsWe used snowball sampling within a global network of international telepsychiatry experts. Thirty collaborators from 17 different countries/regions responded to a questionnaire on barriers to the use and implementation of telepsychiatric care, including policy factors such as regulations and reimbursement at the end of 2019 and as of May 2020.ResultsThirteen of 17 regions reported a relaxation of regulations due to the pandemic; consequently, all regions surveyed stated that telepsychiatry was now possible within their public healthcare systems. In some regions, restrictions on prescription medications allowed via telepsychiatry were eased, but in 11 of the 17 regions, there were still restrictions on prescribing medications via telepsychiatry. Lower insurance reimbursement amounts for telepsychiatry consultations v. in-person consultations were reevaluated in four regions, and consequently, in 15 regions telepsychiatry services were reimbursed at the same rate (or higher) than in-person consultations during the COVID-19 pandemic.ConclusionsOur results confirm that, due to COVID-19, the majority of countries surveyed are altering telemedicine regulations that had previously restricted the spread of telemedicine. These findings provide information that could guide future policy and regulatory decisions, which facilitate greater scale and spread of telepsychiatry globally.

A combined heat and power (CHP) system generates electricity from thermal energy and generates heat by utilizing the remaining thermal energy. The system efficiency of the cogeneration system is 75–85 %, which is very high compared to existing only power generation facilities, so it is very useful for energy conservation and environmental protection. For this reason, interest in the cogeneration system is increasing worldwide. Generally, a cogeneration plant consists of a steam turbine alone or the combined power generation of a gas turbine and a steam turbine depending on the scale. The steam turbine is divided into a back-pressure type turbine and a condensing type turbine depending on the operational methodology of the steam turbine. In both cases, the shift in the return temperature of the district heating users influences the performance of the cogeneration plant, thus affecting the power generation costs of the power plant. It is possible to accurately estimate the change in the unit cost of the power generation caused by these changes, and to inflict it on the user, thereby changing the usage pattern of the user and reducing the energy consumption accordingly. In this study, the commercial combined cycle cogeneration system using back - pressure type turbine was simulated, and the change of performance of the combined heat and power plant was analyzed while changing the user facility’s total return temperature. Based on the results of this analysis, a possible loss in the plant according to the change of return temperature was predicted. Also the effect of each user’s return temperature on the plant loss was analyzed using an actual user’s return temperature data. The economic-mechanical approach, such as this study, can alleviate dissatisfaction with the user’s charge and to consume energy in a more rational way. It eventually can play a role in reducing carbon emissions.

Objective Striatal dopamine dysfunction caused by cortical abnormalities is a leading hypothesis of schizophrenia. Although prefrontal cortical pathology is negatively correlated with striatal dopamine synthesis, the relationship between structural frontostriatal connectivity and striatal dopamine synthesis has not been proved in patients with schizophrenia with different treatment response. We therefore investigated the relationship between frontostriatal connectivity and striatal dopamine synthesis in treatment-responsive schizophrenia (non-TRS) and compared them to treatment-resistant schizophrenia (TRS) and healthy controls (HC).Methods Twenty-four patients with schizophrenia and twelve HC underwent [18F] DOPA PET scans to measure dopamine synthesis capacity (the influx rate constant Kicer) and diffusion 3T MRI to measure structural connectivity (fractional anisotropy, FA). Connectivity was assessed in 2 major frontostriatal tracts. Associations between Kicer and FA in each group were evaluated using Spearman’s rho correlation coefficients.Results Non-TRS showed a negative correlation (r=-0.629, p=0.028) between connectivity of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex-associative striatum (DLPFC-AST) and dopamine synthesis capacity of associative striatum but this was not evident in TRS (r=-0.07, p=0.829) and HC (r=-0.277, p=0.384).Conclusion Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis of dysregulation of the striatal dopaminergic system being related to prefrontal cortex pathology localized to connectivity of DLPFC-AST in non-TRS, and also extend the hypothesis to suggest that different mechanisms underlie the pathophysiology of non-TRS and TRS.

The development of Ni-based nanoalloys has been extensively explored due to their low cost, high activity, and durability in the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Structural design of Ni-based nanoalloys is a promising approach to attain excellent electrocatalytic activity as well as stability of these catalysts. This study reports a facile method to prepare NixRhy nanosponges while using NaBH4 as a reducing agent without any surfactant. The ratio of Ni and Rh has been changed to obtain various NixRhy electrocatalysts (Ni, Ni3Rh1, Ni1Rh1, Ni1Rh3, and Rh), respectively. Among the prepared catalysts, Ni1Rh3 electrocatalyst exhibits a high electrocatalytic activity with an overpotential of 48 mV at a current density of −10 mA cm−2 and a superior stability even after 2000 cycles of CV in 0.5 M H2SO4 electrolyte. In addition, the Ni1Rh3 electrocatalyst shows good electrocatalytic activity in 1.0 M KOH electrolyte compared to commercial Pt/C (20 wt% of Pt) (c-Pt/C). Moreover, the overall water splitting system of the Ni1Rh3 cathode and the commercial RuO2 anode is evaluated, not only exhibiting excellent performance with a potential of 1.52 V at a current density of 10 mA cm−2, but also proving very stable operation for over 100,000 s in 1.0 M KOH electrolyte.

Development of highly efficient electrocatalysts to produce hydrogen has been a significant topic over the past few decades. Currently, the platinum metal group shows the best catalytic performance for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), but the high cost and low abundance of these materials limit their wider application. Therefore, we synthesized transition-metal-based NiCoS along with carbon dots (C-dots) as a structure-directing agent by a hydrothermal method. We also synthesized sulfur-doped NiCo, where the sulfur enhances the conductivity of the catalysts. Herein, the synthesis temperatures were changed in the range from 120 to 240 °C. Among all, NiCoS synthesized at 150 °C shows the best HER performance capabilities. In more detail, NiCoS prepared at this temperature exhibits an onset potential of 96 mV and an overpotential of 232 mV. Especially, as-prepared NiCoS nanoflower subjects to long-term stability over 20 h at a current density of 10 mA/cm2, making it a promising low-cost candidate for hydrogen production.

This dissertation includes three chapters that cover topics on international trade. The first chapter focuses on various production strategies of multinational firms and presents a complex global sourcing model. Multinational firms have been the driving force of growing global production over the past decades. With multinational firms’ Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), international trade is engaged on the firm level, rather than on a country or industry level. However, their production strategies are not limited to FDI. One option would be arms’ length contracts, so-called outsourcing, even though firm productivity determines the sourcing strategies. In this paper, we extend the range of complex global sourcing strategies used by multinational firms, in which they utilize outsourcing as an additional strategy and connect it to the location choice. The analysis reveals that the equilibrium regime of firms is determined by industry characteristics such as the relative fixed costs and the outsourcing related parameter. Along with firm productivity, the results show the implications of self-selection into FDI versus outsourcing.The second chapter provides the welfare implication of heterogeneous multinational firms by using a general equilibrium simulation model. We extend the model presented in the first chapter to the general equilibrium and quantify the gains from trade, comparing them with the trade-only model. The gains from trade liberalization can be higher with both trade and multinational firms than with only trade. The income path induced by multinational firms is a significant factor in explaining the gap of gains across models. FDI by multinational firms can re-organize the foreign factor market that drives the welfare gains to respond more sensitively in our model than with the trade-only model. Additionally, our model implies that welfare responses differ, depending upon the production boundaries.In the last chapter, we discuss the recent Korea-Japan trade dispute in 2019. This work primarily focuses on quantifying the economic impacts of the dispute and how much it creates trade diversion with their major trading partners. Using the GTAPinGAMS model calibrated to the latest GTAP 10 database, we consider the non-tariff barriers in our model—the export controls by the Japanese government and boycotts by Koreans. We control bilateral trade shocks to reflect the observed trade responses in the Korea Customs Service data. We analyze the impacts of the trade dispute on welfare, sectoral outputs, and trade patterns. Our results show that the trade dispute impacts Korea the most, and Japan is followed. The welfare impacts estimated in this study would be 0.14% ($1033.71 million) for Korea and 0.01% ($345.69 million) for Japan. Additionally, the trade dispute between the two countries creates slight trade diversion with their major trading partners, such as China, the United States, the EU, and Asian countries. Consequently, Japan loses by 2.46% of its trade flow to Korea while slightly increasing exports to other countries. On the other hand, Korea’s imports from Japan decrease moderately, but the trade flow with other countries increases, so that the total percent changes in imports would be 0.18%. Even though the dispute might be initiated and justified by the complicated historical and political reasons between two countries, the results in this work show that the economic impacts are not negligible, which have direct trade policy implications for understanding and restoring the relations.

With the development of cloud technology, people are focusing on lightweight container technology. Container networking is a core technology in providing high-level cloud services, and there are various implementation models such as Container Network Model (CNM) and Container Network Interface (CNI). Among them, CNI is a de-facto standard adopted by various container platforms. There are many plugins that implement the CNI networking model, and the implementation method differs, showing a great difference in a view of performance. MEC (Multi-Access Edge Computing) is a technology that provides services by locating the server closest to the user who wants to use mobile communication services. In this paper, the performance was measured by applying various CNI network plugins to the CoV architecture. Through this measurement, we analyzed the factors of network performance degradation. The result of the analysis is expected to be used as a good reference in constructing the CoV architecture for low latency in the future.

Rapid evolution of Internet of Things (IoT) devices places new demands on the ease of networking very large numbers of devices. The IEEE 1451 family of smart transducer standards for sensors and actuators is evolving to keep pace. One of the most important innovations within the standards is the transducer electronic data sheet (TEDS), which conveys essential device information. For distributed networks, the health of devices is of increasing concern as a means to for assuring measurement and control actions. This paper describes the adaptation of the TEDS concept to a health electronic data sheet (HEDS) that is to be proposed as part of ongoing standards update activities. The HEDS has a lexicon of anomalies and associated measures, which an application can access to support the health functions. Pushing the use of HEDS to edge devices can distribute health assessment across all levels of a system hierarchy.