Coordinated RES and ESS Planning Framework Considering Financial Incentives Within Centralized Electricity Market

Coordinated investment and operations within renewable portfolio standards is one of the key technologies to meet the renewable energy target and realize the economic operations of the power system.This paper proposes a unified framework of coordinated planning and financial incentives.Joint investment in renewable energy and energy storage and joint optimization of energy and ancillary services are integrated into a unified framework.Various factors are taken into consideration by the social planner in the centralized electricity market,such as the sitting and sizing of renewable energy and energy storage,charge and discharge efficiency of the energy storage,transmission network constraints,reserve capacity,and financial incentives.This framework provides a tool for the social planner to determine the optimal planning scheme of renewable energy and energy storage.The conclusion derived is that the sum of market revenue and financial subsidies of renewable energy and energy storage is exactly equal to their investment cost which is obtained by the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker(KKT)condition of maximizing social welfare problems.A numerical result based on the modified IEEE-39 bus test system demonstrates the effectiveness of the unified framework.The impact of financial incentives,reserve capacity,and production costs on capital investment are studied.

Providing financial incentives to rural-to-urban tuberculosis migrants in Shanghai: an intervention study

Background:Financial issues are major barriers for rural-to-urban migrants accessing tuberculosis(TB)care in China.This paper discusses the effectiveness of providing financial incentives to migrant TB patients(with a focus on poor migrants in one district of Shanghai using treatment completion and default rates),the effect of financial incentives in terms of reducing the TB patient cost,and the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of the intervention.Results:Ninety and ninety-three migrant TB patients were registered in the intervention and control districts respectively.TB treatment completion rates significantly improved by 11%(from 78%to 89%)in the intervention district,compared with only a 3%increase(from 73%to 76%)in the control district(P=0.03).Default rates significantly decreased by 11%(from 22%to 11%)in the intervention district,compared with 1%(from 24%to 23%)in the control district(P=0.03).In the intervention district,the financial subsidy(RMB 1,080/US$170)accounted for 13%of the average patient direct cost(RMB 8,416/US$1,332).Each percent increase in treatment completion costs required an additional RMB 6,550(US$1,301)and each percent reduction in defaults costs required an additional RMB 5,240(US$825)in the intervention district.Conclusions:Overall,financial incentives proved to be effective in improving treatment completion and reducing default rates among migrant TB patients in Shanghai.The results suggest that financial incentives can be effectively utilized as a strategy to enhance case management among migrant TB patients in large cities in China,and this strategy may be applicable to similar international settings.

New Developments in Water Efficiency

An overview of significant new developments in water efficiency is presented in this paper. The areas covered will be legislative, regulatory, new programs or program wrinkles, new products, and new studies on the effectiveness of conservation programs. Examples include state and local level efficiency regulations in Texas; the final results of the national submetering study for apartments in the US; the US effort to adopt the IWA protocols for leak detection; new water efficient commercial products such as ET irrigation controllers, new models of efficient clothes washers, and innovative toilet designs.

Ethical and policy considerations for organ trafficking and transplant tourism:Based on the UK's first international case of human trafficking for the purpose of organ removal

This study examines the UK's May 2023 judgment in an international organ trafficking and organ tourism case.Human trafficking for organ removal is one of the least understood but growing forms of trafficking worldwide.Countries in the Middle East,Asia,and the Americas are often widely criticized by the international transplant community as sites for organ trafficking.However,we believe that when discussing this issue,it is not just these areas that need to be addressed.What is particularly special is that this case not only involves transnational human trafficking,organ trafficking,and illegal organ transplantation interest chains but also involves the participation of national political officials and complex social and humanistic factors.This article focuses on the current ethical and policy issues involved in organ transplant tourism and organ trafficking and analyzes the implications of this case for our country's donation and transplantation work.

Motivational Strategies to Improve Artisan’s Productivity in the Construction Industry in Ghana

Motivation is a strategy adopted by organisational managers to improve organisational performance. Most researchers have found different factors that affect the motivation on a different level. The aim of the survey was to examine the motivational strategies for improving productivity among artisans in the construction companies in the Eastern Region and the Greater Accra Region of Ghana. The study adopted a descriptive cross-sectional research design utilising the quantitative approach. A purposive random sampling technique was employed to choose 90 workers to participate in the study. A structured questionnaire was utilised to gather information from respondents. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) were used to analyse the data collected. Results from the survey showed that artisans see motivation as very significant in their workplace. The study found that empowerment, quality of life, and monetary incentive have significant relation with motivation and effective use of such strategies could assist construction industry practitioners to enhance craftsmen performance. The study contributes to a few pieces of literature existing in construction motivational strategies. The findings point to the fact that industrial players should pay more attention to the motivational strategies to assist artisans’ function effectively in their work environment.

How Do Patients and Providers React to Different Incentives in the Chinese Multiple Health Security Systems？

Background：China has achieved universal health insurance coverage.This study examined how patients and hospitals react to the different designs of the plans and to monitoring of patients by the local authority in the Chinese multiple health security schemes.Methods：The sample for analysis consisted of 1006 orthopedic inpatients who were admitted between January and December 2011 at a tertiary teaching hospital located in Beijing.We conducted general linear regression analyses to investigate whether medical expenditure and length of stay differed according to the different incentives.Results：Patients under plans with lower copayment rates consumed significantly more medication compared with those under plans with higher copayment rates.Under plans with an annual ceiling for insurance coverage,patients spent significantly more in the second half of the year than in the first half of the year.The length of stay was shorter among patients when there were government monitoring and a penalty to the hospital service provider.Conclusions：Our results indicate that the different designs and monitoring of the health security systems in China cause opportunistic behavior by patients and providers.Reformation is necessary to reduce those incentives,and improve equity and efficiency in healthcare use.

Real option-based optimization for financial incentive allocation in infrastructure projects under publicprivate partnerships

Financial incentives that stimulate energy investments under public-private partnerships are considered scarce public resources,which require deliberate allocation to the most economically justified projects to maximize the social benefits.This study aims to solve the financial incentive allocation problem through a real option-based nonlinear integer programming approach.Real option theory is leveraged to determine the optimal timing and the corresponding option value of providing financial incentives.The ambiguity in the evolution of social benefits,the decision-maker’s attitude toward ambiguity,and the uncertainty in social benefits and incentive costs are all considered.Incentives are offered to the project portfolio that generates the maximum total option value.The project portfolio selection is formulated as a stochastic knapsack problem with random option values in the objective flinction and random incentive costs in the probabilistic budget constraint.The linear probabilistic budget constraint is subsequently transformed into a nonlinear deterministic one.Finally,the integer non-linear programming problem is solved,and the optimality gap is computed to assess the quality of the optimal solution.A case study is presented to illustrate how the limited financial incentives can be optimally allocated under uncertainty and ambiguity,which demonstrates the efficacy of the proposed method.

Effect of the new maternity insurance scheme on medical expenditures for caesarean delivery in Wuxi, China： a retrospective pre/post-reform case study

Aiming to control rising medical expenditures and help improve China＇s healthcare systems, this study examined whether a cap-based medical insurance scheme with shared financial interest between the insurance and healthcare providers is effective in containing hospitals＇ C-section medical expenditures. We used 6547 caesarean delivery case records from a teaching tertiary-level general public hospital located in Wuxi, China （2004-2013）, and used the Chow test to investigate the possibility of significant variation in mean medical expenditures for caesarean deliveries pre- and post-reform. We also used paired sample t-tests and linear regression models to compare the mean medical expenditures between insured and uninsured women undergoing caesarean delivery during the post-reform period. After the scheme＇s implementation, medical expenditures for caesarean deliveries declined and the medical expenditures of women covered by the scheme were significantly lower than those of uninsured patients. These findings indicated the scheme＇s effectiveness in minimizing caesarean delivery expenditures. The cap-based medical insurance scheme with shared financial interest between insurance and healthcare providers would likely steer healtbcare providers＇ behaviors in a more cost-effective direction.