ahmedabdelwahed/Medical_papers_title_and_abstract_NLP_dataset huggingface dataset:
Sustainable supplier selection: A novel integrated fuzzy best worst method (F-BWM) and fuzzy CoCoSo with Bonferroni (CoCoSo'B) multi-criteria model

In sustainable supply chain management (SSCM), triple bottom line (TBL) of sustainability (economic, social, and environmental) are considered when selecting the suppliers. In this paper, the relative weights of SSCM practices are extracted by fuzzy best worst method (F-BWM) which is capable of better modeling of human thinking. Afterwards, the traditional Combined Compromise Solution (CoCoSo) method is enhanced by the integration of the normalized weighted and the normalized weighted geometric Bonferroni mean functions to select the most proper supplier in a supply chain. The integration of the Bonferroni functions into the CoCoSo method (CoCoSo'B) enables: (1) flexible decision-making respecting the interaction between decision attributes; (2) the elimination of the influence of extreme/awkward data on the values of the criterion functions, and (3) checking the robustness of the results through a variation of the parameters lambda, p, and q. Testing the model on the example of sustainable supplier selection demonstrates the rationality, objectivity, flexibility, and stability of the results of the proposed model. Further, the proposed framework makes it possible to evaluate suppliers in terms of sustainability in spite of ambiguities in the decision-making process and a lack of quantitative information. Finally, a real world example of home appliance manufacturer in Serbia is discussed to verify the proposed model applicability. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Membranes for zinc-air batteries: Recent progress, challenges and perspectives

Rechargeable Zinc (Zn)-air batteries are considered to be very attractive candidates for large-scale electricity storage due to their high volumetric energy density, high safety, economic feasibility and environmental friendliness. In Zn-air batteries, the membrane allows the transport of OH- ions between the air electrode and the Zn electrode while providing a physical barrier between the two electrodes in order to prevent electrical short circuits. The performance of this battery is greatly affected by the physicochemical properties of the employed membrane. However, the development of appropriate membranes has received insufficient attention. In this paper, an overview of recent developments and a critical discussion of the state-of-the-art studies focusing on membranes for Zn-air batteries are provided. The membranes are classified in seven categories, which are discussed in light of their structure, properties and performances in Zn-air battery. Moreover, membrane synthesis and modification strategies to minimize the crossover of zincate ions and formation/growth of Zn-dendrites are presented. Finally, the remaining key challenges related to the membranes and the most promising future research directions are provided. The main objective of this work is to provide guidance for researchers and industries for the selection and development of appropriate membranes with the ultimate goal of commercializing rechargeable Zn-air batteries.
Flexible environmental policy, technological innovation and sustainable development of China's industry: The moderating effect of environment regulatory enforcement

How to rely on market mechanism for achieving industrial sustainable development is an important issue both to current scholars and policymakers. Technological innovation is regarded as a mediator to construct a driving mechanism that flexible environmental policy affects sustainable development from the "narrow" perspective of Porter's hypothesis. Meanwhile, environment regulatory enforcement is introduced as a moderator to explore the institutional scenario that drives sustainable development of China's industry. Then we have adopted industrial panel data of 30 provinces in 2006-2015 and employed the sys-GMM method for empirical test. The findings show that: (1) flexible environmental policy can significantly facilitate industrial sustainable development. (2) Flexible environmental policy has a significantly positive impact on technological innovation. Meanwhile, technological innovation is significantly and positively related to industrial sustainable development, and technological innovation partially mediates the relationship between flexible environmental policy and industrial sustainable development. (3) Environment regulatory enforcement positively moderates the relationship between flexible environmental policy and technological innovation. However, it has a potentially positive but not significant moderating impact on the relationship between technological innovation and industrial sustainable development, indicating that there is still an "implementation gap". (4) From a regional point of view, technological innovation has partly mediating effects between flexible environmental policy and industrial sustainable development in the eastern and western regions, and environmental regulatory enforcement can positively moderate the role of flexible environmental policy in promoting technological innovation in the eastern region. Finally, this paper puts forward the policy implications. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Procyanidin A1 alleviates DSS-induced ulcerative colitis via regulating AMPK/mTOR/p70S6K-mediated autophagy

Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a recurrent chronic inflammatory disease. The symptom of UC is mainly diarrhea including bloody stools. Increasing evidence has suggested that procyanidin A1 (PCA1) exerts an anti-inflammatory effect in several diseases. However, the role of PCA1 in UC is still a mystery. In our study, we explored the effect of PCA1 in dextran sulfate sodium (DSS)-induced UC mice and lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated HT-29 and IEC-6 cells. Then, cell proliferation, apoptosis, the production of proinflammatory cytokines, and autophagy-related markers were determined. Furthermore, the AMPK/mTOR/p70S6K signaling pathway was assayed by Western blot assay. In in vivo study, we found that PCA1 administration alleviated DSS-induced UC, as evidenced by reducing weight loss, clinical scores, colon weight/length ratio, histological damage, proinflammatory cytokines, and apoptosis. Moreover, we showed that the expression of Beclin-1 and LC3II/I ratio was increased, whereas the level of p62 was decreased after PCA1 treatment in vivo. Meanwhile, the reduced AMP/ATP ratio, enhanced expression of p-AMPK, and decreased p-p70S6K and p-mTOR levels indicate the activation of AMPK/mTOR/p70S6K signaling pathway. In in vitro study, PCA1 promoted cell proliferation and inhibited cell apoptosis in LPS-stimulated HT-29 and IEC-6 cells. Pro-inflammatory cytokines and autophagy-related factors exhibited the same trend as in in vivo results. Mechanically, PCA1 activated the AMPK/mTOR/p70S6K signaling pathway. The treatment with an AMPK inhibitor compound C significantly reversed the anti-inflammatory effect of PCA1 in LPS-stimulated cells. Taken together, these data indicated that PCA1 alleviated UC through induction of AMPK/mTOR/p70S6K-mediated autophagy.
Study on the interactive influence between economic growth and environmental pollution

With the rapid growth of economy, the environmental pollution problem is becoming increasingly prominent. How to promote the coordinated and balanced development of economy and environment is a strategic problem of great significance that we face urgently. Taking Wuhan City of China as the research object, this paper selects the key indexes of economic growth and environmental pollution and studies the interactive influence between economic growth and environmental pollution in Wuhan. On the one hand, the impact of Wuhan's economic growth on environmental pollution is analyzed by the proposed time-delay correlation analysis method and the time-delay EKC (Environment Kuznets Curve) models. On the other hand, the impact of Wuhan's environmental pollution on environmental growth is studied. By establishing the LARS-LASSO (least angle regression-least absolute shrinkage and selection operator) regression model and the stepwise regression model, the main factors affecting economic growth in preliminary environmental pollution indexes are analyzed, and then, an interaction model is established to study the impact of the interaction between any two main environmental factors on economic growth. The results of empirical analysis show that the main factors affecting economic growth are industrial wastewater emissions, industrial waste gas emissions, and industrial smoke and dust emissions, and the interaction between industrial waste gas emissions and industrial wastewater emissions restrains economic growth.
Site selection of wind farms using GIS and multi-criteria decision making method in Wafangdian, China

Site selection is one of the most significant decision making activities for development of wind energy resource. In this study, a novel method integrating Geographic Information System (GIS), interval Analytic Hierarchy Process (IAHP) and stochastic VIKOR was proposed to tackle site selection issue of wind farms in the Wafangdian region, China. Two major factors, i.e. biodiversity conservation and production safety, were utilized to determine feasible areas. Afterwards, the weight of evaluation criteria, including the social impact, economic benefit, terrain and eco-environment protection, were identified by using IAHP. Finally, the suitability indexes of various alternatives were calculated by stochastic VIKOR and their ranking was used to determine high-suitability areas for wind farm locations. The obtained results indicated that 30.2% of studied region were suitable for installing the wind-power facilities, but only 3.36% were determined to be highly suitable. By comparing the optimized results to the actual locations of existing wind farms, it was revealed that the ideological framework of this study were practical and effective in guiding site selection of wind farms, and they were also useful for applications in site selection of other renewable energy forms involving complex spatial analysis and multiple criteria evaluation, including solar, hydroelectric, geothermal and biomass. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Battery-Driven N2 Electrolysis Enabled by High-Entropy Catalysts: From Theoretical Prediction to Prototype Model

A small-scale standalone device of nitrogen (N2 ) splitting holds great promise for producing ammonia (NH3 ) in a decentralized manner as the compensation or replacement of centralized Haber-Bosch process. However, the design of such a device has been impeded by sluggish kinetics of its half reactions, i.e., cathodic N2 reduction reaction (NRR) and anodic oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Here, it is predicted from density function theory that high-entropy oxides (HEOs) are potential catalysts for promoting NRR and OER, and subsequently develop a facile procedure to synthesize HEOs in the morphology of sea urchin-shaped hollow nanospheres assembled from ultrathin nanosheets. The excellent electrocatalytic activities of HEOs for both NRR (NH3 yield rate: 47.58 µg h-1 mg-1 and Faradaic efficiency (FE): 10.74%) and OER (215 mV @10 mA cm-2 ) are demonstrated. Consequently, a prototype device of N2 electrolysis driven by commercial batteries is constructed, which can operate smoothly and deliver remarkable NH3 yield rate (41.11 µg h-1 mg-1 ) and FE (14.14%). Further mechanism study has attributed the excellent catalytic performances of HEOs to their unique electronic structures originated from multi-metal synergistic effects and entropy increase effects. The work will provide new clues for designing versatile catalysts and devices for large-scale industrialization.
Entrepreneurship as the Unsung Hero during the Current COVID-19 Economic Crisis: Australian Perspectives

The COVID-19 pandemic has not only had a significant and catastrophic effect on business and economies globally, but has identified the external and internal enablement of new venture creation. This paper aims to provide entrepreneurship insights, implementations and dynamics to demonstrate the role of entrepreneurship in times of such adversity within an Australian context. We provide emergent enquiry narratives from leading Australian scholars, identifying entrepreneurial initiatives as a catalyst to new venture creation and growth. Narratives include insights associated with the entrepreneurial mindset, the multidimensional effects of resilience and entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship education, entrepreneurship enablers and the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Opportunities for further research are identified, particularly regarding context and empirical outcomes. We postulate that entrepreneurship may well be the unsung hero during the current COVID-19 economic crisis.
Does electricity consumption and globalization increase pollutant emissions? Implications for environmental sustainability target for China

Giving that People's Republic of China is one of the two new frontiers of globalization, the country has continued to contend with the bottleneck of sustaining its economic growth amidst environmental hiccups arising from the drawbacks of globalization and energy consumption. By investigating the challenges of the country's drive toward environmental sustainability, the present study offers a new perspective on the role of electricity consumption and economic growth in a carbon-income function setting. This study also incorporates globalization into CO2 emissions equation for the experimental period of 1970-2014. Stationarity properties were ascertained by the Zivot and Andrew unit root test under a single structural break. Subsequently, the recent and novel combined cointegration test of Bayer and Hanck (2013) in conjunction with the Pesaran bounds testing approach is used to establish a cointegration relationship among the selected variables. Finally, the modified Wald test of the Toda-Yamamoto Granger causality test is employed to detect the direction of causality flows among the variables. Empirical piece of evidence finds a statistically positive correlation between electricity consumption and economic growth as seen in the long-run regression. This result is also affirmed by the Granger causality test. The test corroborates with the electricity-induced growth hypothesis in the case of China. However, there is an environmental trade-off, as more electricity consumptions spur increased carbon dioxide emissions (CO2). Our study finds empirical support that globalization reduced pollutant emissions in both the short and long run over our sampled period. Based on these results and outcomes, several policy prescriptions on the energy-income and environment nexus are renders for policymakers. Among such policy recommendations are (a) the need for the diversification of the Chinese energy mix to cleaner energy sources and renewables and (b) the need for decarbonization and adoption of carbon capturing and storage technologies.
Industry 4.0 sustainable supply chains: An application of an IoT enabled scrap metal management solution

The fourth industrial revolution and the digitisation of supply chains have led companies to realize that the adoption of Industry 4.0/Internet of Things (IoT) solutions creates opportunities for more sustainable management. The sustainable management of scrap metal is a challenging task for all the organisations that participate in the supply chain and especially for scrap metal producers and waste management companies. Although metals are considered to be infinitely recycled, scrap metal management is often inefficient due to several factors including collection processes, communication and marketplace limitations, which have significant environmental and economic impacts. The purpose of this paper is to provide evidence of the impact of an IoT solution on the sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) performance. A case study from a scrap metal producer that operates in the lift industry and a waste management company is presented, in order to illustrate how the deployment of a state-of-the-art industry 4.0 solution has the potential to improve sustainability both in the firm level and in the supply chain level. Direct benefits of the introduced solution are the automation of monitoring and negotiation procedures for the produced scrap metal. Indirectly, the proposed solution is beneficial in terms of CO2 emissions' reduction, resources availability and response time optimization. The results validate the framework for assessing SSCM for Industry 4.0 developed by Manavalan and Jayakrishna (2019) and demonstrate that Industry 4.0 solutions have the potential to improve, among others, the economic, environmental and social sustainability in supply chain management. The present study contributes to the literature by bridging the gap between theoretical developments and real-world cases in the fields of industry 4.0 and SSCM. Managerial implications, limitations and future research opportunities are also provided. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Evaluation of 3-month follow-up of patients with postacute COVID-19 syndrome

In addition to the highly variable clinical presentation of acute COVID-19 infection, it can also cause various postacute signs and symptoms. This study aimed to evaluate patients with postacute COVID-19 over 12 weeks of follow-up. The study included 151 patients who were diagnosed with COVID-19 by real-time polymerase chain reaction of a nasopharyngeal swab 1 month earlier, had radiologic findings consistent with COVID-19 pneumonia, and presented to the post-COVID-19 outpatient clinic between May and August 2021. The patients were divided into three groups based on COVID-19 severity: nonsevere pneumonia (Group 1), severe pneumonia (Group 2), and severe pneumonia requiring intensive care (Group 3). Evaluation of laboratory parameters at 4 and 12 weeks showed that Group 3 had a higher lactose dehydrogenase (LDH) level and a lower mean platelet volume than the other groups at both time points (p = 0.001 for all). Group 3 also had lower percent predicted forced vital capacity (FVC%), percent predicted forced expiration volume in 1 s (FEV1%), and percent predicted diffusion capacity of the lungs for carbon monoxide divided by alveolar volume (DLCO/VA%) compared to Groups 1 and 2 at Week 4 (p = 0.001, 0.004, 0.001, respectively) and compared to Group 1 at 12 weeks (p = 0.002, 0.03, 0.001, respectively). Patients with persistent dyspnea at 12 weeks had significantly lower FEV1%, FVC%, DLCO/VA%, and saturation levels in room air and significantly higher LDH, pro-BNP, D-dimer, and heart rate compared to those without dyspnea (p = 0.001 for all). Although the lungs are most commonly affected after COVID-19 infection, vascular and endothelial damage also causes multisystem involvement. Our study indicates that laboratory values, radiological signs, and pulmonary functional capacity improved in most patients after 12 weeks of follow-up.
Zero-waste approach in municipal solid waste incineration: Reuse of bottom ash to stabilize fly ash

In this paper a simple method for all waste recovery through municipal solid waste incineration (MSWI) is presented. For the first time, MSWI fly ash (FA) is treated using MSWI bottom ash (BA), which is considered as a new urban mining source due to its pozzolanic characteristics. The proposed technology involves mixing these ashes with two other components: flue gas desulphurization residue and coal fly ash. Thermal annealing at a low temperature (120 degrees C for 4 h) can also be performed, to accelerate some reactions, but it is not necessary for stabilization. The efficacy of the process is demonstrated by the comparison of elemental concentrations in leaching solutions that are detected in the untreated ashes and the obtained stabilized materials, which show the reduced solubility of leachable Zn and Pb (with respect to the starting MSWI FA). The chemical, morphological, and structural characterization of the obtained materials makes it possible to propose and discuss a stabilization mechanism, which was attributed to carbonation and formation of calcium silicate hydrate (C-S-H). In particular, for the stabilized sample, X-ray Diffraction analysis confirmed the formation of calcite, whereas the sample morphology shows some fibrils that may be due to amorphous C-S-H with a Ca/Si ratio that is slightly smaller than 1.5. Because the proposed method employs wastes produced at the same location, it is reasonable to conclude that the method may be directly applied to incinerator plants due to the simplification of the MSWI FA waste management strategy, which generally involves its transport and stabilization treatment before landfilling. Finally the saved carbon dioxide emissions and the economic benefits that are a result of the new urban mining proposed approach have been evaluated for Europe. In particular the avoid of MSWI FA landfilling was evaluated to save approximately 1.6 M(sic)/day, and the saved carbon dioxide emissions introduced into the atmosphere is approximately 960 kt/year. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Cooperative breeding and the emergence of multilevel societies in birds

Multilevel societies (MLSs), where social levels are hierarchically nested within each other, are considered one of the most complex forms of animal societies. Although thought to mainly occurs in mammals, it is suggested that MLSs could be under-detected in birds. Here, we propose that the emergence of MLSs could be common in cooperatively breeding birds, as both systems are favoured by similar ecological and social drivers. We first investigate this proposition by systematically comparing evidence for multilevel social structure in cooperative and non-cooperative birds in Australia and New Zealand, a global hotspot for cooperative breeding. We then analyse non-breeding social networks of cooperatively breeding superb fairy-wrens (Malurus cyaneus) to reveal their structured multilevel society, with three hierarchical social levels that are stable across years. Our results confirm recent predictions that MLSs are likely to be widespread in birds and suggest that these societies could be particularly common in cooperatively breeding birds.
The centennial of the pecking order: current state and future prospects for the study of dominance hierarchies

A century ago, foundational work by Thorleif Schjelderup-Ebbe described a 'pecking order' in chicken societies, where individuals could be ordered according to their ability to exert their influence over their group-mates. Now known as dominance hierarchies, these structures have been shown to influence a plethora of individual characteristics and outcomes, situating dominance research as a pillar of the study of modern social ecology and evolution. Here, we first review some of the major questions that have been answered about dominance hierarchies in the last 100 years. Next, we introduce the contributions to this theme issue and summarize how they provide ongoing insight in the epistemology, physiology and neurobiology, hierarchical structure, and dynamics of dominance. These contributions employ the full range of research approaches available to modern biologists. Cross-cutting themes emerging from these contributions include a focus on cognitive underpinnings of dominance, the application of network-analytical approaches, and the utility of experimental rank manipulations for revealing causal relationships. Reflection on the last 100 years of dominance research reveals how Schjelderup-Ebbe's early ideas and the subsequent research helped drive a shift from an essentialist view of species characteristics to the modern recognition of rich inter-individual variation in social, behavioural and physiological phenotypes. This article is part of the theme issue 'The centennial of the pecking order: current state and future prospects for the study of dominance hierarchies'.