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The economy is undergoing a radical transformation in all its structures, completely changing the methods of management. Changes are taking place on a global scale based on the digital technologies being implemented. The role of the state and executive authorities is being completely rethought. They are transforming themselves into “digital governments”, IT platforms, and forming their own digital structures with a list of services that are necessary for the population. In this study the following 4 directions of development of the public administration system were identified and reviewed in detail: digital reforms in the public administration system; long-term balance and sustainability of public administration; focusing on improving the quality and efficiency of public services; implementation of project management methods for the development and implementation of state programs. Based on the conducted research, current trends in public administration have been highlighted, and it was concluded that the trends in the development of modern economies include the mandatory participation of the state.

The present study is motivated by the need to decouple economic growth from environmental degradation given the new wave of chase for higher economic growth trajectories comes with its environmental cost implications, especially among developing blocs like the Emerging 7 (E7) countries. There is a consistent trade-off between economic growth versus environmental quality. Government apparatus are perpetually on the chase for low-carbon emission policies via the pursuit for green economy. To this end, this present study extends the conventional environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) argument by incorporating the role of institution in emerging industrialized economies (E7) and using second-generation panel analysis methods like mean group (MG), augmented mean group (AMG), common correlated effects mean group (CCEMG), and the Dumitrescu and Hurlin causality test for more robust estimates and inferences. To this end, we explore the long-run and causality relationship between economic growth, quadratic form of economic growth, institutional quality, trade flow, investment in energy sector, and financial development in an EKC environment. Empirical analysis established a long-run equilibrium relationship among the outlined variables over the study period. The long-run regression shows the presence of EKC in the E7. Thus, suggesting the preference for GDP growth over environmental quality at the earlier stage of growth curve. Interestingly, investment in energy, trade flow dynamics across the blocs, and financial development dampens the detrimental effect of environmental pollution as we observed negative relationship with the ecological footprint. On the contrary, quality of institution is weak as institutional quality increase (worsen) the quality of environment in the E7 economies. From a policy perspective, this current study proposed the need for more stringent environmental treaties and regulations and promotion of green economy without compromising economic growth. In the conclusion part of the study, more details and specifics about the policy blueprint are presented.

Abstract The implementation of energy efficiency measures is an effective way to gain energy savings in the Italian residential sector. This paper assesses the embodied energy impact related to the envelope insulation and evaluates the energy and carbon payback of the efficiency measures. The proposed method consists of (1) an estimation of the baseline operational energy consumption, (2) simulations of realistic retrofit solutions and, (3) the assessment of the ‘retrofitting’ embodied energy and the energy and carbon payback time calculation. The payback is based on the comparison between the saved operational energy and the embodied energy of the materials selected for insulation. Ten Italian cities are analysed, and the results show a deep dependence on the climate zone. In Northern Italian cities, envelope insulation gains relevance as the energy and carbon payback periods are shorter, about 3 years against the 84 years for the Southern city of Palermo. The optimal thickness is estimated for the city of Milan considering the building’s typology, the insulation materials, and the energy payback. This study shows how the total energy savings can be used as a criterion to obtain design indications.

Insects have a pivotal role in ecosystem function, thus the decline of more than 75% in insect biomass in protected areas over recent decades in Central Europe1 and elsewhere2,3 has alarmed the public, pushed decision-makers4 and stimulated research on insect population trends. However, the drivers of this decline are still not well understood. Here, we reanalysed 27 years of insect biomass data from Hallmann et al.1, using sample-specific information on weather conditions during sampling and weather anomalies during the insect life cycle. This model explained variation in temporal decline in insect biomass, including an observed increase in biomass in recent years, solely on the basis of these weather variables. Our finding that terrestrial insect biomass is largely driven by complex weather conditions challenges previous assumptions that climate change is more critical in the tropics5,6 or that negative consequences in the temperate zone might only occur in the future7. Despite the recent observed increase in biomass, new combinations of unfavourable multi-annual weather conditions might be expected to further threaten insect populations under continuing climate change. Our findings also highlight the need for more climate change research on physiological mechanisms affected by annual weather conditions and anomalies.

Abstract In order to develop a deeper understanding of the behaviour of commercial automotive lithium-ion pouch cells under short-circuiting conditions, two scenarios were experimentally investigated and compared. Firstly, experiments were conducted by internally shorting 15 Ah cells by full nail penetration using three different nail materials; copper, steel and plastic. A second set of experiments involved externally shorting the cell tabs using an external circuit with a range of resistance values. In both scenarios the cell electrical and thermal response were determined by the shorting resistance. In the case of nail penetration there was a clear distinction between the outcome of the conducting and non-conducting nails, although the outcome using conducting nails suffered from poor reproducibility. The poor reproducibility was attributed to the variation in the contact resistance between the nail and the cell layers. Correlating the outcome of both tests can be used to estimate the shorting resistance and construct the current profile during nail penetration test.

The technological development of preparing bio-oil from low-temperature hydrothermal conversion of agricultural and forestry waste has positive significance for alleviating the shortage of oil energy supply and reducing environmental pollution. This paper selects typical oxides (Al2O3, CeO2, MgO, SiO2, TiO2, and ZnO) as catalysts to set up a low-temperature (220 °C) hydrothermal conversion process of cotton stalk containing pretreatment processes including chopping. For moderate amplification estimation, lab-scale experimental data is used as a benchmark for calculation, and the functional unit for this study is set to be a 1 kg bio-oil product. The results suggest that the cerium dioxide-involved process with the highest bio-oil yield and highest synthetic consumption, and the silica-involved process with the lowest bio-oil yield, caused the highest environmental impact, resulting in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of 67.729 kg CO2e/kg and 60.001 kg CO2e/kg, respectively. It indicates that catalysts need to consider the balance between synthetic consumption and catalytic performance. Magnifying lab-scale data to an industrial scale using scale-up frameworks introduces a low model uncertainty, as the practical value had little effect on the overall evaluation results. However, existing equipment data should be used to reduce the uncertainty of the model itself. The environmental sustainability of bio-oil production by low-temperature hydrothermal liquefaction still needs to be improved, especially by catalyst recovery and bio-oil yield improvement.

This paper presents a mixed-integer model for the hourly energy and reserve scheduling of a price-taker and closed-loop pumped-storage hydropower plant operating in hydraulic short-circuit mode. The plant participates in the spot market and in the secondary regulation reserve market, taking into account the regulation energy due to the real-time use of the regulation-up and -down reserves. The proposed model is used to compare the maximum theoretical income of the plant with and without considering hydraulic short-circuit operation. Numerical results demonstrate that the operation in hydraulic short-circuit mode could help significantly to enlarge the income of the power plant and that the secondary regulation reserve market might be the main source of revenue in a realistic setting characterized by a high level of renewable energy sources in the generation mix. info:eu-repo/semantics/draft