Selected Papers from the 8th Annual Conference of Energy Economics and Management

This collection represents successful invited submissions from the papers presented at the 8th Annual Conference of Energy Economics and Management held in Beijing, China, 22–24 September 2017. With over 500 participants, the conference was co-hosted by the Management Science Department of National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Chinese Society of Energy Economics and Management, and Renmin University of China on the subject area of “Energy Transition of China: Opportunities and Challenges”. The major strategies to transform the energy system of China to a sustainable model include energy/economic structure adjustment, resource conservation, and technology innovation. Accordingly, the conference and its associated publications encourage research to address the major issues faced in supporting the energy transition of China. Papers published in this collection cover the broad spectrum of energy economics issues, including building energy efficiency, industrial energy demand, public policies to promote new energy technologies, power system control technology, emission reduction policies in energy-intensive industries, emission measurements of cities, energy price movement, and the impact of new energy vehicle

CDC (Cindy and David’s Conversations) game: Advising President to survive pandemic

Summary: Ongoing debates on anti-COVID19 policies have been focused on coexistence-with versus zero-out (virus) strategies, which can be simplified as “always open (AO)” versus “always closed (AC).” We postulate that a middle ground, dubbed LOHC (low-risk-open and high-risk-closed), is likely favorable, precluding obviously irrational HOLC (high-risk-open and low-risk-closed). From a meta-strategy perspective, these four policies cover the full spectrum of anti-pandemic policies. By emulating the reality of anti-pandemic policies today, the study aims to identify possible cognitive gaps and traps by harnessing the power of evolutionary game-theoretic analysis and simulations, which suggest that (1) AO and AC seem to be “high-probability” events (0.412–0.533); (2) counter-intuitively, the middle ground—LOHC—seems to be small-probability event (0.053), possibly mirroring its wide adoptions but broad failures. Besides devising specific policies, an equally important challenge seems to deal with often hardly avoidable policy transitions along the process from emergence, epidemic, through pandemic, to endemic state

A Review of Low-Carbon Transformation and Energy Innovation Issues in China

Scale-oriented economic development in China has given rise to problems associated with high energy consumption and severe environmental pollution. Thus, the 7th China Annual Conference of Energy Economics and Management provides a platform for presenting ongoing research activities in order to exchange research ideas in the area of low-carbon economics and sustainable development for China. We thank Sustainability for providing this timely special issue. This editorial highlights the contents and methodologies of this conference special issue, presenting several important issues in energy economics and management

A survivability-centered research agenda for cloud computing supported emergency response and management systems

Cloud computing is evolved from grid computing with a key support from the rapidly expanding virtualization technology. We argue that clouding computing is particularly suitable for supporting emergency response and management (ERM) because of some of its unique features such as rapid setup and deployment on ad hoc basis, highly flexible platforms (PaaS: Platform as a Service) and application services (SaaS: Software as a Service) with little time-space constraints. ERM is one of the seven critical national infrastructures and services mandated to protect by the 1999 US President's Executive Order (PCCIP). The paradigm of survivability and survivable network systems was a response of academia to the president's executive order. We concur that survivability should be the lifeline of any ERM, including the cloud computing supported (CCS) ERM systems. In this article, we present a research agenda that is aimed at developing a survivability-centered architecture for evolving reliable and survivable CCS-ERM systems. The research agenda suggests that biological and computational evolutions should be rich sources of biological inspirations as well as powerful optimization algorithm for designing (evolving) the ERM systems. The proposed research agenda advocates the application of three-layer survivability analysis, dynamic hybrid fault models, and extended evolutionary game theory modeling developed by Ma & Krings IMa & Krings (2008a-e, 2011), Ma et al. (2009a), Ma (2008, 2009, 2010, 20lla,b). We use banking system survivability as an example to illustrate the proposed research agenda

Efficacy and safety of unilateral tibial cortex transverse transport on bilateral diabetic foot ulcers: A propensity score matching study

Background: Tibial Cortex Transverse Transport (TTT) has been demonstrated to be an effective treatment for unilateral diabetic foot ulcers (UDFUs). However, this retrospective study was designed to compare the efficacy and safety of unilateral TTT on bilateral diabetic foot ulcers (BDFUs). Methods: This retrospective study included a review of patients with TTT treated from January 2017 to August 2019, Propensity Score Matching (PSM) was performed to compare patients with BDFUs to those with UDFUs. Ulcer healing, recurrence, and major amputation rates were evaluated at 1-year follow-up. Changes in foot vessels were assessed in the BDFUs group using computed tomography angiography (CTA). Results: A total of 140 patients with DFUs (106 UDFUs and 34 BDFUs) were included in the study. UDFUs and BDFUs were matched in a 1:1 ratio (34 in each group) using PSM. No significant difference was observed at 1-year-follow-up [91.2% (31/34) vs. 76.5% (26/34), OR 0.315 (95% CI 0.08 to 1.31), P ​= ​0.10] and 6-month-follow-up [70.6% (24/34) vs. 50.0% (17/34), OR 0.85 (95% CI 0.15 to 1.13), P ​= ​0.08] in two groups. Significant differences in rates of major amputation and recurrence between the groups (P ​> ​0.05) were not observed. The BDFUs group appeared more angiogenesis of the foot by CTA after 8 weeks of operation. Conclusion: Results of this study suggest that severe BDFUs can be effectively treated by unilateral TTT. TTT is easy to operate and effective, which may be a good alternative for treating severe BDFUs. The translational potential of this article: In previous retrospective clinical studies, TTT has demonstrated promising clinical outcomes in the management of diabetic foot ulcers. In this current study, we aim to investigate the potential use of TTT in treating distant tissue defects by evaluating the limited availability and safety of TTT for the management of bilateral diabetic foot. While additional basic and clinical research is necessary to fully elucidate the underlying mechanisms, our study offers insight into the potential therapeutic use of TTT for this condition