A Reliability-Oriented Cost Optimisation Method for Capacity Planning of a Multi-Carrier Micro-Grid: A Case Study of Stewart Island, New Zealand

Nearly all types of energy systems (such as power systems, natural gas supply systems, fuel supply systems, and so forth) are going through a major transition from centralised, top-down structures to distributed, clean energy approaches in order to address the concerns regarding climate change, air quality, depletion of natural resources, and energy security, whilst also enabling the supply of energy to communities in line with the goals of sustainable development. Accordingly, the establishment of the concept of sustainable, decentralised, multi-carrier energy systems, together with the declining costs of renewable energy technologies, has proposed changes in the energy industry towards the development of integrated energy systems. Notwithstanding the potential benefits, the optimal capacity planning of these systems with multiple energy carriers (such as electricity, heat, hydrogen, and biogas) is exceedingly complex due to the concurrent goals and interrelated constraints that must be satisfied, as well as the heavily context-dependent nature of such schemes. This paper puts forward an innovative optimal capacity planning method for a cutting-edge, stand-alone multiple energy carrier micro-grid (MECM) serving the electricity, hot water, and transportation fuel demands of remote communities. The proposed MECM system is equipped with wind turbines, a hydrogen sub-system (including an electrolyser, a hydrogen reservoir, and a fuel cell), a hybrid super-capacitor/battery energy storage system, a hot water storage tank, a heat exchanger, an inline electric heater, a hydrogen refuelling station, and some power converters. A numerical case study for the optimal capacity planning of the suggested MECM configuration, to be realised on Stewart Island, New Zealand, is presented to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed optimisation method.Comment: Electricity Engineers' Association (EEA) Conference & Exhibition 2019, Auckland, New Zealand, 25-27 June 201

Data-driven, metaheuristic-based off-grid microgrid capacity planning optimisation and scenario analysis: Insights from a case study of Aotea-Great Barrier Island

Small privately-purchased off-grid renewable energy systems (RESs) are increasingly used for energy generation in remote areas. However, such privately-purchased stand-alone RESs are often unaffordable for households with lower incomes. While considerable attention has been devoted to a range of off-grid microgrid sizing methods, leveraging the potential of data-driven, artificial intelligence-based metaheuristic optimisation algorithms is less well-explored. Importantly, data-driven metaheuristics have the potential to produce the nearest solution to the globally optimum solution in microgrid sizing applications, which have been recognised as non-deterministic, polynomial time-hard (NP-hard) problems. Furthermore, there is a general lack of electrified transportation interventions considered during long-term grid-independent microgrid planning phases. In response, this paper introduces a novel metaheuristic-based strategic off-grid microgrid capacity planning optimisation model that is applicable to associated integrated energy and e-mobility resource plans. The formulated general off-grid microgrid sizing model is solved using a competitively selected state-of-the-art metaheuristic, namely moth-flame optimisation. To test the effectiveness of the proposed model, three independent microgrid development projects have been considered for three communities residing on Aotea-Great Barrier Island, namely Tryphena, Medlands, and Mulberry Grove. The sites of interest have different demand profiles and renewable energy potentials, with consequent changes in the technologies considered in the associate candidate pools.Comment: Electricity Engineers' Association (EEA) Conference 2022, Hamilton, New Zealand, 19-21 September 202

The Consumptive Significance of Images and Interface Values in Cyberpunk Cities

Cyberpunk is one of the latest genres in the development of science fiction. The genre emerged during the 80s and 90s, and in it the characters are confronted by an abundance of images and interface values. As a result, these images and values have become key identifying motifs of this genre. Referring to the theoretical conceptualizations of Adam Roberts about novum, and Lieven De Cauter on capsules and capsulization, the present study argues that the reason for the abundance of images and interface values is due to their facilitation of the consumption of novelties in cyberpunk cities. Within a scientific and rational discourse, images and interface values combine familiar and unfamiliar concepts and package them both as convenient commodities to be consumed by the characters of cyberpunk fiction. One of the key outcomes of such a combination, the study argues, is that the characters of cyberpunk fiction rely on the consumption of images and interface values as a convenient means to handle the overwhelming presence of technological and cybernetic advancements in the represented cities. This outcome turns the need to see and consume the cyberpunk world through images and interface values into an ideological necessity—or what can also be called a defense mechanism—for the characters against the technological shock of cybernetic advancements; a necessity whose qualities will be discussed in the study, as well

Formable Fluidity: The Key Consequence of Information Flow in Cyberpunk Fiction

Cyberpunk is one of the most recent subgenres to emerge in science fiction. In the represented world of this subgenre, information is the constituting element of all the flows, frameworks and interactions. Within the cyberpunk world, information exercises both fluidity and formability in its manipulations. The fluidity occurs when information manipulates different aspects of the represented world through commodifying and simulative operations, and the formability and containment of the fluidity occur when the conventional conceptualizations of aspects such as time and labor resist losing ground to simulations and its various informational manipulations. As a result, an uneasy coexistence of formability and fluidity is materialized in various aspects of the cyberpunk world, a coexistence which the present study will address as formable fluidity. Through reviewing some key works in the subgenre, the present study investigates the impact of the formable fluidity on the temporal and the occupational aspects of the presented world in cyberpunk fiction. The study assumes that due to the highly fluid and  speculative nature of information in cyberpunk fiction, time loses its durational historicity. This subgenre also favors modalities of ownership, capital and labor which have the highest level of mobility and networking, with the commitment to conventional fixities and centralities in the occupational aspects becoming contingent, unstable and temporary

Estimating global injuries morbidity and mortality : methods and data used in the Global Burden of Disease 2017 study

Background: While there is a long history of measuring death and disability from injuries, modern research methods must account for the wide spectrum of disability that can occur in an injury, and must provide estimates with sufficient demographic, geographical and temporal detail to be useful for policy makers. The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2017 study used methods to provide highly detailed estimates of global injury burden that meet these criteria. Methods: In this study, we report and discuss the methods used in GBD 2017 for injury morbidity and mortality burden estimation. In summary, these methods included estimating cause-specific mortality for every cause of injury, and then estimating incidence for every cause of injury. Non-fatal disability for each cause is then calculated based on the probabilities of suffering from different types of bodily injury experienced. Results: GBD 2017 produced morbidity and mortality estimates for 38 causes of injury. Estimates were produced in terms of incidence, prevalence, years lived with disability, cause-specific mortality, years of life lost and disability-adjusted life-years for a 28-year period for 22 age groups, 195 countries and both sexes. Conclusions: GBD 2017 demonstrated a complex and sophisticated series of analytical steps using the largest known database of morbidity and mortality data on injuries. GBD 2017 results should be used to help inform injury prevention policy making and resource allocation. We also identify important avenues for improving injury burden estimation in the future

Estimating global injuries morbidity and mortality : methods and data used in the Global Burden of Disease 2017 study

Background While there is a long history of measuring death and disability from injuries, modern research methods must account for the wide spectrum of disability that can occur in an injury, and must provide estimates with sufficient demographic, geographical and temporal detail to be useful for policy makers. The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2017 study used methods to provide highly detailed estimates of global injury burden that meet these criteria. Methods In this study, we report and discuss the methods used in GBD 2017 for injury morbidity and mortality burden estimation. In summary, these methods included estimating cause-specific mortality for every cause of injury, and then estimating incidence for every cause of injury. Non-fatal disability for each cause is then calculated based on the probabilities of suffering from different types of bodily injury experienced. Results GBD 2017 produced morbidity and mortality estimates for 38 causes of injury. Estimates were produced in terms of incidence, prevalence, years lived with disability, cause-specific mortality, years of life lost and disability-adjusted life-years for a 28-year period for 22 age groups, 195 countries and both sexes. Conclusions GBD 2017 demonstrated a complex and sophisticated series of analytical steps using the largest known database of morbidity and mortality data on injuries. GBD 2017 results should be used to help inform injury prevention policy making and resource allocation. We also identify important avenues for improving injury burden estimation in the future.Peer reviewe

Global burden of 369 diseases and injuries in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019

Background: In an era of shifting global agendas and expanded emphasis on non-communicable diseases and injuries along with communicable diseases, sound evidence on trends by cause at the national level is essential. The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) provides a systematic scientific assessment of published, publicly available, and contributed data on incidence, prevalence, and mortality for a mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive list of diseases and injuries. Methods: GBD estimates incidence, prevalence, mortality, years of life lost (YLLs), years lived with disability (YLDs), and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) due to 369 diseases and injuries, for two sexes, and for 204 countries and territories. Input data were extracted from censuses, household surveys, civil registration and vital statistics, disease registries, health service use, air pollution monitors, satellite imaging, disease notifications, and other sources. Cause-specific death rates and cause fractions were calculated using the Cause of Death Ensemble model and spatiotemporal Gaussian process regression. Cause-specific deaths were adjusted to match the total all-cause deaths calculated as part of the GBD population, fertility, and mortality estimates. Deaths were multiplied by standard life expectancy at each age to calculate YLLs. A Bayesian meta-regression modelling tool, DisMod-MR 2.1, was used to ensure consistency between incidence, prevalence, remission, excess mortality, and cause-specific mortality for most causes. Prevalence estimates were multiplied by disability weights for mutually exclusive sequelae of diseases and injuries to calculate YLDs. We considered results in the context of the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a composite indicator of income per capita, years of schooling, and fertility rate in females younger than 25 years. Uncertainty intervals (UIs) were generated for every metric using the 25th and 975th ordered 1000 draw values of the posterior distribution. Findings: Global health has steadily improved over the past 30 years as measured by age-standardised DALY rates. After taking into account population growth and ageing, the absolute number of DALYs has remained stable. Since 2010, the pace of decline in global age-standardised DALY rates has accelerated in age groups younger than 50 years compared with the 1990–2010 time period, with the greatest annualised rate of decline occurring in the 0–9-year age group. Six infectious diseases were among the top ten causes of DALYs in children younger than 10 years in 2019: lower respiratory infections (ranked second), diarrhoeal diseases (third), malaria (fifth), meningitis (sixth), whooping cough (ninth), and sexually transmitted infections (which, in this age group, is fully accounted for by congenital syphilis; ranked tenth). In adolescents aged 10–24 years, three injury causes were among the top causes of DALYs: road injuries (ranked first), self-harm (third), and interpersonal violence (fifth). Five of the causes that were in the top ten for ages 10–24 years were also in the top ten in the 25–49-year age group: road injuries (ranked first), HIV/AIDS (second), low back pain (fourth), headache disorders (fifth), and depressive disorders (sixth). In 2019, ischaemic heart disease and stroke were the top-ranked causes of DALYs in both the 50–74-year and 75-years-and-older age groups. Since 1990, there has been a marked shift towards a greater proportion of burden due to YLDs from non-communicable diseases and injuries. In 2019, there were 11 countries where non-communicable disease and injury YLDs constituted more than half of all disease burden. Decreases in age-standardised DALY rates have accelerated over the past decade in countries at the lower end of the SDI range, while improvements have started to stagnate or even reverse in countries with higher SDI. Interpretation: As disability becomes an increasingly large component of disease burden and a larger component of health expenditure, greater research and developm nt investment is needed to identify new, more effective intervention strategies. With a rapidly ageing global population, the demands on health services to deal with disabling outcomes, which increase with age, will require policy makers to anticipate these changes. The mix of universal and more geographically specific influences on health reinforces the need for regular reporting on population health in detail and by underlying cause to help decision makers to identify success stories of disease control to emulate, as well as opportunities to improve. Funding: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY 4.0 licens

The global burden of cancer attributable to risk factors, 2010-19 : a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019

Background Understanding the magnitude of cancer burden attributable to potentially modifiable risk factors is crucial for development of effective prevention and mitigation strategies. We analysed results from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2019 to inform cancer control planning efforts globally. Methods The GBD 2019 comparative risk assessment framework was used to estimate cancer burden attributable to behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risk factors. A total of 82 risk-outcome pairs were included on the basis of the World Cancer Research Fund criteria. Estimated cancer deaths and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) in 2019 and change in these measures between 2010 and 2019 are presented. Findings Globally, in 2019, the risk factors included in this analysis accounted for 4.45 million (95% uncertainty interval 4.01-4.94) deaths and 105 million (95.0-116) DALYs for both sexes combined, representing 44.4% (41.3-48.4) of all cancer deaths and 42.0% (39.1-45.6) of all DALYs. There were 2.88 million (2.60-3.18) risk-attributable cancer deaths in males (50.6% [47.8-54.1] of all male cancer deaths) and 1.58 million (1.36-1.84) risk-attributable cancer deaths in females (36.3% [32.5-41.3] of all female cancer deaths). The leading risk factors at the most detailed level globally for risk-attributable cancer deaths and DALYs in 2019 for both sexes combined were smoking, followed by alcohol use and high BMI. Risk-attributable cancer burden varied by world region and Socio-demographic Index (SDI), with smoking, unsafe sex, and alcohol use being the three leading risk factors for risk-attributable cancer DALYs in low SDI locations in 2019, whereas DALYs in high SDI locations mirrored the top three global risk factor rankings. From 2010 to 2019, global risk-attributable cancer deaths increased by 20.4% (12.6-28.4) and DALYs by 16.8% (8.8-25.0), with the greatest percentage increase in metabolic risks (34.7% [27.9-42.8] and 33.3% [25.8-42.0]). Interpretation The leading risk factors contributing to global cancer burden in 2019 were behavioural, whereas metabolic risk factors saw the largest increases between 2010 and 2019. Reducing exposure to these modifiable risk factors would decrease cancer mortality and DALY rates worldwide, and policies should be tailored appropriately to local cancer risk factor burden. Copyright (C) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY 4.0 license.Peer reviewe