Personality Type A or Personality Type D, Which is a Strong Predictor of Coronary Heart Disease?

Considering the increasing incidence and prevalence of coronary heart disease and the increasing emphasis of health researchers on the association and relationship of psychosocial factors with the occurrence and persistence of cardiovascular disease, the need to identify the desired factors and determine each of the personality and psychological factors. The effect is felt more than ever in patients who are also the target of the present study. The main purpose of this study was to determine the predictors of coronary heart disease based on personality types. Among cardiovascular patients, men and women aged 25-60 years in Shahid Madani and 29 Bahman hospitals in Tabriz, who were admitted to surgical wards for coronary angiography in 2015, 50 people were selected who met the inclusion criteria. Also, 50 patients were selected from the patients' companions and answered the questionnaires of Denollet type D personality and Ratus personality pattern questionnaire. Findings showed that the variables of negative emotions, social inhibition of the personality type D subscale were predictors of coronary heart disease. But the role of personality type A in predicting coronary heart disease is not significant. Social inhibition was also the strongest predictor of coronary heart disease. The present study showed that personality factors are predictors of coronary heart disease

Global prevalence of nosocomial infection: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Objectives: Hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) are significant problems as public health issues which need attention. Such infections are significant problems for society and healthcare organizations. This study aimed to carry out a systematic review and a meta-analysis to analyze the prevalence of HAIs globally.   Methods: We conducted a comprehensive search of electronic databases including EMBASE, Scopus, PubMed and Web of Science between 2000 and June 2021. We found 7031 articles. After removing the duplicates, 5430 studies were screened based on the titles/abstracts. Then, we systematically evaluated the full texts of the 1909 remaining studies and selected 400 records with 29,159,630 participants for meta-analysis. Random-effects model was used for the analysis, and heterogeneity analysis and publication bias test were conducted.   Results: The rate of universal HAIs was 0.14 percent. The rate of HAIs is increasing by 0.06 percent annually. The highest rate of HAIs was in the AFR, while the lowest prevalence were in AMR and WPR. Besides, AFR prevalence in central Africa is higher than in other parts of the world by 0.27 (95% CI, 0.22-0.34). Besides, E. coli infected patients more than other micro-organisms such as Coagulase-negative staphylococci, Staphylococcus spp. and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. In hospital wards, Transplant, and Neonatal wards and ICU had the highest rates. The prevalence of HAIs was higher in men than in women.   Conclusion: We identified several essential details about the rate of HAIs in various parts of the world. The HAIs rate and the most common micro-organism were different in various contexts. However, several essential gaps were also identified. The study findings can help hospital managers and health policy makers identify the reason for HAIs and apply effective control programs to implement different plans to reduce the HAIs rate and the financial costs of such infections and save resources

Genome-wide association study of circulating interleukin 6 levels identifies novel loci

Interleukin 6 (IL-6) is a multifunctional cytokine with both pro- and anti-inflammatory properties with a heritability estimate of up to 61%. The circulating levels of IL-6 in blood have been associated with an increased risk of complex disease pathogenesis. We conducted a two-staged, discovery and replication meta genome-wide association study (GWAS) of circulating serum IL-6 levels comprising up to 67428 (ndiscovery=52654 and nreplication=14774) individuals of European ancestry. The inverse variance fixed effects based discovery meta-analysis, followed by replication led to the identification of two independent loci, IL1F10/IL1RN rs6734238 on chromosome (Chr) 2q14, (Pcombined=1.8x10-11), HLA-DRB1/DRB5 rs660895 on Chr6p21 (Pcombined=1.5x10-10) in the combined meta-analyses of all samples. We also replicated the IL6R rs4537545 locus on Chr1q21 (Pcombined=1.2x10-122). Our study identifies novel loci for circulating IL-6 levels uncovering new immunological and inflammatory pathways that may influence IL-6 pathobiology.</p

Sähkön ja lämmön yhteistuotannon mallitus ja optimointi

Combined heat and power (CHP) production is a prominent technique for producing heat and electric power in an integrated process. While the produced heat is used locally, for district heating or for industrial processes, the electricity can be transmitted over long distances by the grid. The advantage of CHP is much higher energy efficiency than separate heat and power production. Therefore, CHP offers also significant potential for reducing emissions. At the same time, the global trend of increasing intermittent renewable energy forms is leading to imbalance between power supply and demand. While CHP production is difficult to adjust for non-coincident heat and power demand, the flexibility of a CHP system can be improved by including also separate power and heat production plants. Energy storages and power transmission between multiple areas can also improve the system flexibility and provide economic benefits. Cost efficient operation of such CHP systems can be determined by optimization models. This study presents optimization models for different CHP planning problems, with different time horizons (short to long-term), single area and multiple areas, and with heat storages, power storages, or both. Depending on which components are included to the model, dedicated decomposition-based techniques have been developed for solving each model efficiently. An integrated model is decomposed into sub-models including both local and multi-area models. The first model is a multi-period local CHP model with heat storage. This model is solved by a generic linear programming (LP) algorithm, but a special extreme point formulation is applied in the modelling. The second model is an hourly multi-area model. A two-phase de-composition method including local and network models is proposed to optimize hourly multi-area energy production with power transmission. The third model extends the decomposition model with power storages for long-term problems. Last, an iterative process based on decomposition method is developed to include also heat storages. To produce realistic test data, a method was developed to generate heat demand with proper spatial and temporal variation also for areas where hourly historical data is unavailable. The models have been validated by comparison with existing solution techniques for different problem sizes and time horizons. The results indicate that developed methods have high accuracy and fast solution time for long-term problems that is useful in solving hourly large-scale energy systems including thousands of variables. The speed advantage of the decomposition method improves with model size.The methods can be used for long-term planning of CHP system operation to support investment decisions, and for simulating system extension.Yhdistetty sähkön ja lämmön tuotanto (CHP) on tekniikka jossa sähköä ja lämpöä tuotetaan integroidussa prosessissa. CHP-tuotannon etuna on huomattavasti parempi energiatehokkuus verrattuna sähkön ja lämmön erillistuotantoon. Siksi CHP on potentiaalinen tekniikka myös päästöjen vähentämiseksi. Tuuli- ja aurinkosähkön voimakas lisääntyminen hankaloittaa tuotannon ja kysynnän ajallista kohtaamista. Tämä vaikeuttaa erityisesti CHP-tuotannon suunnittelua silloin kun sähkön ja lämmön kysyntävaihtelu ei ajallisesti kohtaa. CHP-järjestelmän joustavuutta voidaan parantaa energiavarastojen ja sähkön siirtoverkon avulla, ja samalla saavuttaa taloudellisia säästöjä. Tällaisen monimuotoisten energiajärjestelmien toimintaa voidaan suunnitella optimointimallien avulla. Tässä tutkimuksessa on kehitetty optimointimalleja CHP-tuotannon suunnitteluongelmiin, jotka ovat erilaisia aikahorisontin pituuden (lyhyt-pitkä aikaväli), alueiden lukumäärän (yksi tai useampi), ja varastojen suhteen (lämpö- tai sähkövarastot vai molempia). Ongelmiin on kehitetty tehokkaita dekompositioon perustuvia ratkaisualgoritmeja. Dekompositiossa järjestelmän kokonaismalli pilkotaan eri tavoin osamalleiksi, jotka ratkaisemalla saadaan kokonaismallin ratkaisu. Yksinkertaisin malleista on yhden alueen CHP-tuotantomalli, johon sisältyy lämpövarasto. Malli voidaan ratkaista yleisenä lineaarisen ohjemoinnin (LP) mallina, mutta mallinnuksessa on sovellettu erityistä ekstreemipisteformulaatiota. Seuraava malli on tunnittainen usean alueen malli, johon sisältyy sähkön siirtoverkko. Mallin ratkaisemiseen on kehitetty kaksivaiheinen dekompositiotekniikka, jossa sovelletaan parametrista LP-analyysia aluekohtaisesti ja muodostetaan analyysin tulosten perusteella usean alueen sähkön tuotannon ja siirron verkkotehtävä. Kolmannessa mallissa tunnittainen malli on laajennettu pitkän aikavälin malliksi ottamalla verkkotehtävään mukaan aluekohtaiset sähkövarastot. Lopuksi mallia on laajennettu kattamaan aluekohtaiset lämpövarastot. Sähkö- ja lämpövarastojen optimomiseksi yhdessä sähkön siirtojen laajennettiin dekompositiotekniikkaa kolmannella dekompositiomallilla ja mallien välisellä iteratiivisella prosessilla.  Realistisen testidatan tuottamiseksi kehitettiin tekniikka, jossa kulutusennustemalleja hyödyntämällä voidaan tuottaa ajallisesti ja alueellisesti oikealla tavalla vaihtelevaa kaukolämmön kulutusdataa niillekin paikkakunnille, joilta ei ole todellista tuntipohjaista mittaustietoa saatavilla. Kehitetyt mallit on validoitu vertailemalla tuloksia aikaisempiin malleihin ja ratkaisutekniikoihin eri kokoisilla CHP-järjestelmillä ja vaihtelevan pituisilla aikahorisonteilla. Kehitetyt menetelmät ovat tarkkoja ja nopeita suurillakin tehtävillä. Menetelmiä voidaan soveltaa sekä CHP-järjestelmien pitkän aikavälin käytön suunnittelussa, että simuloimaan järjestelmän laajennuksia investointipäätösten tueksi

Potential profits from ancillary service markets

In this deliverable from the SeCoHeat project, profits that can be made with 1 MWh of electricity production capacity on existing ancillary service markets are evaluated in 2020 and 2021. Profits are evaluated for four different marginal production costs corresponding to the following fuels for a CHP power plant: waste (assumed fuel price: 0 kr/MWh), recycled wood (10 kr/MWh), wood chips (20 kr/MWh) and wood pellets (30 kr/MWh). The results show that except for wood chips and wood pellets in 2020, the most profitable ancillary service markets are FFR (fast-frequency response) and aFRR down (automatic frequency restoration reserves for down-regulation). The reasons are that (1) producers don’t have to withhold capacity from the day-ahead market when their participate in these two markets and (2) producers get compensated for the capacity reserved for the ancillary service markets. For wood chips, the FFR market was the most profitable in 2020, followed by the mFRR down market (manual frequency restoration reserves for down-regulation). The reason for the mFRR down market to be more profitable than the aFRR down market for this fuel is that the profits from mFRR down depend on the avoided fuel costs, which are higher for wood chips than for waste and recycled wood. In 2021, all prices started increasing significantly, which decreased the relative profitability of the mFRR down compared to other markets. For wood pellets, the mFRR down market was also the second most profitable market in 2020, for the same reasons. The most profitable one in 2020 was the mFRR up market (manual frequency restoration reserves for up-regulation). The reason is that the higher fuel price of these two fuels entails low participation in the day-ahead market. Therefore, withholding capacity from the day-ahead market to be able to participate on the mFRR up market brings additional profits. In 2021, however, day-ahead prices started increasing significantly (a trend that continued into 2022) and the mFRR up market became the least profitable market for these two fuels. The profit evaluation performed in this deliverable is purely economic. It does not include the sector coupling to the heat sector (which entails limitation of the available electricity production capacity but also a possibility to store heat if storage is available) nor does it include other technical limitations such as ramp rates. These aspects will be considered in follow-up work in this project. This report has been compiled within the scope of the project SeCoHeat - Sector coupling of district heating with the electricity system: profitability and operation. The project is financed by the Research and Development Foundation of Göteborg Energi

Profit estimation for district heating systems when participating in electricity and ancillary service markets

Profits generated by district heating systems when participating in ancillary service markets in the electricity sector are studied in this report. An hourly scheduling model is developed to optimally schedule district heating units to meet the heat demand, minimize costs and maximize revenues from electricity markets. The output is used to evaluate the additional profits made by participating in the existing Swedish ancillary markets in addition to the day-ahead electricity market. Case studies are run in two district heating systems, one in Nyköping and one in Gothenburg, for the historical years of 2021 and 2022. Nyköping’s system is also used to evaluate potential profits from ancillary service markets in future scenarios for 2025, 2035 and 2045. Finally, Nyköping’s system is used to evaluate potential additional profits generated by two investments that enhance the flexibility that can be provided to the electricity sector: better CHP ramp rates and larger thermal storage. The analysis of the results shows, for both historical and future years, that participating in ancillary services brings about additional profits. These vary depending on the year, studied district heating system. Profits from electricity markets are shown to increase by up to 40% in Nyköping and 200% in Gothenburg when looking at the historical years. Doubling the CHP ramp rates ability for delivering ancillary services or doubling the size of the heat storage are shown to result in up to another 6% of additional profits. In the future scenarios, profits from electricity markets are shown to increase by up to 94%

Parametric optimization of long-term multi-area heat and power production with power storage

This paper develops a model and optimization method for multi-area heat and power production with power transmission and storage. The objective function of the model is to minimize the operating costs of the system. The model can be used both for planning optimal system operation, and for simulating the effects of extended production, transmission and storage capacity. The proposed parametric decomposition method is fast enough to solve problems with a large number of hourly models. The parametric decomposition method works in two phases. First, the problem is decomposed into hourly local energy production models without storages and transmission. Parametric linear programming analysis is applied to these models for determining the optimal marginal operating costs as a function of power production. In the second phase, the optimal marginal cost functions are encoded as a linear transshipment network model including storages and transmission network. The network model is solved using generic sparse linear programming software. The operation of each production plant is determined based on the network solution. The decomposition method was validated by comparing it against an integrated linear programming model. The decomposition method demonstrates good accuracy and solves yearly models up to 30 times faster than the integrated model.Peer reviewe

Review of current and future heat- and electricity-related products and their relevance for district heating companies

A review of sector coupling possibilities between the heat and electricity sectors in Sweden is made in this report. First, a review of the way the heat sector works in Denmark, Finland and Sweden works is performed. Finland and Sweden have similar setups with deregulated heat sectors in which district heating companies set their billing price freely considering different cost factors, including costs for alternative technologies to which consumers could switch. Denmark has had a more regulated approach with prices being reviewed by the regulator. The sector coupling between the electricity sector in Denmark has been stronger than in both Sweden and Finland. District heating companies had an obligation until 2019 to participate in both the day-ahead market and the balancing market (mFRR). CHP plants in Denmark have also participated to frequency regulation (aFRR). There is still a non-negligible share of CHP plants in Denmark running on fossil fuels such as natural gas and coal. Large investments in heat pumps, biofuels and solar thermal facilities have been identified as alternatives to these CHP plants to enable a fossil free heating sector. Second, the current electricity and ancillary service markets in Sweden are described. Recent experiences with local and regional flexibility markets in Sweden are reviewed. District heating companies are particularly well-fitted for participating in these markets thanks to their geographical location close to the electric consumption centres in the cities. Third, a review of the state-of-the-art research on the participation of district heating systems to the electricity and ancillary service markets is performed. It is shown that the flexibility in district heating systems that can be used in the electricity sector can take many forms: changes in the electricity production / consumption of heat production units, by-product usage of the excess heat (e.g. fuel drying), thermal storage in water tanks or other kinds of storage facilities, thermal storage in the pipeline network and thermal storage at the customers’ site (for example in buildings). Research on the technical capabilities shows that many units in the district heating systems can fulfil the requirements for delivering ancillary services. Many research works have identified possible economical gains by participating in more markets on the electricity side (for example ancillary service markets). However, many research works in this field have focused on single CHP plants instead of considering the whole portfolio of units in the district heating systems. To get a more detailed assessment of the profitability of increasing the participation of district heating companies in the electricity sector, it is advocated to develop operational planning and operations tools for district heating systems that can capture the hourly variability of prices of the electricity and ancillary service markets, as well as consider the order in which decisions have to be taken on these markets (i.e. the time order in which the different markets operate). These tools will be developed in the coming work in the project. This report has been compiled within the scope of the project SeCoHeat - Sector coupling of district heating with the electricity system: profitability and operation. The project is financed by the Research and Development Foundation of Göteborg Energi.</p

Ethics and its Impact on Engineering Education Effectiveness in Knowledge Workers

Today, one of the fundamental challenges in engineering education organizations to improve the effectiveness of human resources is knowledge. Undoubtedly, the effectiveness of the process of engineering education in knowledge workers results the interaction of various factors. Since the effectiveness of engineering education in human resource knowledge categories is not necessarily an abstract, but it is the applied aspects of management. Any organization plays an important role in providing a proper ground for institutionalizing and promoting knowledge. In this respect, participation of human resources with knowledge is important. This article tries to first indicates the factors affecting the effectiveness of moral education in human resource knowledge of engineering research literature identified and are properly classified, secondly, the effectiveness of engineering education in human resource knowledge using process analysis network analysis are examined and strategies and ultimately improving the effectiveness of human resource knowledge in engineering education are presented. For such knowledge development the MTN Company tested and evaluated using structural validation methods and results are discussed