62880 research outputs found
Sort by
Dual correction of rainfall and root zone soil moisture estimates for improving streamflow simulations
Get PDFSatellite-based precipitation and soil moisture products are often associated with significant uncertainties, rendering them less reliable for hydrological applications. The present study proposes a dual correction scheme employing satellite-based soil moisture estimates to update satellite-based rainfall and modelled soil moisture states. First, the artificial neural network (ANN) was utilised to correct TRMM 3B42RT rain rate estimates using ASCAT soil moisture observations. Subsequently, the ASCAT surface soil moisture observations were scaled to root-zone level using the Soil Moisture Analytical Relationship and assimilated into the Soil and Water Assessment Tool model through the ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) technique. The correction to the 3B42RT rainfall was evaluated using observed rainfall data, whereas the modelled streamflow was assessed under three correction schemes: sole rainfall correction (forcing correction), sole soil moisture assimilation (state correction), and combined forcing and state correction (dual correction). The results demonstrated that the artificial neural network-based rainfall correction technique improved the 3B42RT rainfall, with an average reduction in RMSE of 7.5 mm and a 10% improvement in NSE. The streamflow evaluation revealed that the forcing correction primarily enhanced the quick-flow component of simulated streamflow, with an assimilation efficiency of 17.3%, whereas the state correction scheme improved the base-flow component (assimilation efficiency of 21.9%). The dual correction combined the benefits of both schemes to achieve an assimilation efficiency of 28.9%. The forecasting performance indicated that the dual correction strategy provided maximum improvement of up to two lead days in the selected catchment. Overall, the dual correction strategy based on ANN and the EnKF promotes the use of satellite-based rainfall and soil moisture data for hydrological applications
Multi-level entrepreneurial ecosystem framework: founder, incubator, and country characteristics for start-up performance
Get PDFThe entrepreneurial ecosystem literature assumes the multi-faceted and multi-level nature of the ecosystem interactions and includes macro-, meso-, and micro-level characteristics. The joint multi-level analysis of start-up founders’ team characteristics, type of entrepreneurship ecosystem support, and its effect on start-up performance is limited. Our article bridges this gap and contributes to the entrepreneurial ecosystem literature by examining a multi-level model of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, including the role of the founder’s team, business incubation process characteristics, and macroeconomic characteristics where a start-up is located, in predicting start-up growth and fundraising success. Using a global data set of start-ups from 408 incubation programs across 178 countries and employing multi-level random intercept modeling, the analysis revealed that start-up performance relies on a specific combination of founders’ team and incubator-type characteristics
Exploring relationships among different sustainability aspects in innovative livestock systems in Europe
Get PDFEuropean livestock farming reflects a range of systems characterized by diverse innovations to increase sustainability. This study aimed to highlight the relationships among different aspects of sustainability in various types of systems. Data were retrieved from 106 farms containing different animal species (dairy cattle, beef cattle, pigs and poultry), using a modified version of the Excel-based questionnaire public goods tool. Each farm was assigned scores for 12 spurs (indicators) of sustainability. Based on these results, the farms were allocated into five clusters. Correlations among the spurs were evaluated, both across all farms and cluster-wise, with contrasting results. When analysed across all farms, several spurs from the environmental dimension were positively correlated with each other. Further, many of the environmental spurs were negatively correlated with spur profitability, which was positively correlated with spur social wellbeing and farm business resilience. A comparison of cluster-wise correlations showed a positive correlation between environmental spurs and spur profitability for large farms but a negative correlation for small farms. The diverging, yet complementary, correlation results from this study open the field to sustainable pathways that are capable of connecting realities with differing production systems and geographical areas while also incorporating their unique features
Energy analysis of technologies to reduce electricity demand for heating in UK residential buildings
Get PDFResidential buildings are among the largest consumers of electricity in the United Kingdom, with heat pumps representing a significant portion of this demand for space heating and domestic hot water. To encourage more flexible electricity usage, time-of-use (ToU) tariffs have been implemented, allowing consumers to adjust their energy consumption in response to daily fluctuations in electricity prices. Nevertheless, peak demand, which occurs during a limited number of hours, poses substantial challenges to the overall power balance and stability of the grid. As a result, there is increasing interest in deploying demand-side management (DSM) technologies to mitigate peak electricity demand for heating purposes. In this study, the effects of several DSM configurations were evaluated under cold climatic conditions, including photovoltaic panels paired with battery energy storage (PV–BESS, Case 1), PV–BESS combined with a solar thermal system (Case 2), and photovoltaic/thermal panels integrated with BESS (PV/T–BESS, Case 3). A simulation model of a typical UK residence, the David Wilson home, was developed in DesignBuilder/EnergyPlus to represent these scenarios and benchmark them against a baseline air-source heat pump setup (Case 0). For the winter month of January, simulations indicated that the heating-related electricity demand without any integrated technologies (Case 0) was 1531.6 kWh. This demand decreased to 1456.1 kWh in Case 1, 1318 kWh in Case 2, and 1132.47 kWh in Case 3. Among the configurations studied, the PV/T–BESS (Case 3) provided the largest reductions in both peak and total electricity demand, owing to its combined generation of electrical and thermal energy
A revisit of supply elasticity and within-city heterogeneity of housing price movements
Get PDFWhile supply elasticity can explain why housing prices appreciate by different amounts across cities, it may play a lesser role in smaller geographic units such as neighbourhoods within a city. This is because of location substitution: a city cannot be easily substituted by another city, but neighbourhoods of the same city can be close substitutes. This paper revisits the question of whether supply elasticity can differentiate housing price appreciation rates within a city by carefully accounting for substitution effects and supply elasticities at the neighbourhood level. From a Hong Kong housing boom (2003 - 2018), we have found that the impact of supply elasticity in a substitutable neighbourhood on average is about one-tenth of the impact in the self-neighbourhood. It rejects the notion of perfect substitution, under which this magnitude difference should not have been identified. The contribution of this paper is threefold: 1) It clarifies the theoretical relationship between supply elasticity and substitution in shaping housing price movements. 2) It proposes two novel ways to account for neighbourhoods’ substitution using the spillover of land availability and price co-movement. 3) It delivers a clear answer that supply elasticity can shape the housing price movements within a city
Fiscal policy and inequality in middle- and high-income countries: redistributive effects of tax and spending shocks
Get PDFMotivated by the sharp increases in public spending following the global financial crisis, we employ the GMM Panel VAR approach at annual frequency between 2004 and 2014 to investigate the dynamic response of alternative income distribution variables to shocks imposed on tax revenues and three key components of social expenditures: social protection, health and education. We confirm the potential of fiscal policy to reduce income inequality in the medium to longer run, but point to the differential approaches to pursue such a goal in middle- versus high-income countries. We find that the particular expenditure component under consideration matters in terms of the dynamic effect on inequality and on different parts of the income distribution, as well as in terms of the implied time profile. In middle-income countries, positive education spending shocks are the most effective in achieving better distributional outcomes over a medium run of several years. By contrast, in high-income countries, positive health spending and tax shocks have a more pronounced favourable dynamic distributional effect
A review of the effect of iron supplementation on the gut microbiota of children in developing countries and the impact of prebiotics
Get PDFIron is essential for many physiological functions of the body, and it is required for normal growth and development. Iron deficiency (ID) is the most common form of micronutrient malnutrition and is particularly prevalent in infants and young children in developing countries.
Iron supplementation is considered the most effective strategy to combat the risk of ID and ID anaemia (IDA) in infants, although iron supplements cause a range of deleterious gut-related problems in malnourished children. The purpose of this review is to assess the available evidence on the effect of iron supplementation on the gut microbiota during childhood ID and to further
assess whether prebiotics offer any benefits for iron supplementation. Prebiotics are well known
to improve gut-microbial health in children and recent reports indicate that prebiotics can
mitigate the adverse gut-related effects of iron supplementation in ID and IDA children. Thus,
provision of prebiotics alongside iron supplements has the potential for an enhanced strategy for
combating ID and IDA among children in the developing world. However, further understanding
is required before the benefit of such combined treatments of ID in nutritionally-deprived
children across populations can be fully confirmed. Such enhanced understanding is of high
relevance in resource-poor countries where ID, poor sanitation and hygiene, alongside
inadequate access to good drinking water and poor health systems are serious public health
concerns
Effects of mother tongue education and multilingualism on reading skills in the regional language and English in India
Get PDFIn a highly multilingual country like India, challenges and opportunities arise in education and language policy. Although multilingualism is often associated with developmental advantages, Indian primary school children generally show low learning outcomes, specifically on literacy.
Here we examine the influence of mother tongue education and multilingualism on the reading skills and reading comprehension of 1,272 Indian primary school children from low SES homes. The children performed the ASER literacy task in both the regional, majority language and in English, which was followed by newly developed reading comprehension questions.
The results show that minority language speakers from monolingual households - who do not receive mother tongue education - underperform compared to majority language speakers when reading in the majority language. When reading in English, growing up in a multilingual household improves children’s performance. Finally, in sites which have a larger proportion of mother-tongue educated children, children perform better in literacy in the regional language and worse in English. Overall, these results provide insight into the influence of mother tongue education and multilingualism on reading abilities and show that more support is needed for minority language speakers to develop literacy in the majority language, and for all children to develop literacy in English