Meteorological-Data-Based Modeling for PV Performance Optimization

Developing a sustainable and reliable photovoltaic (PV) energy system requires a comprehensive analysis of solar profiles and an accurate prediction of solar energy performance at the study site. Installing the PV modules with optimal tilt and azimuth angles has a significant impact on the total irradiance delivered to the PV modules. This paper proposes a comprehensive optimization model to integrate total irradiance models with the PV temperature model to find the optimal year-round installation parameters of PV modules. A novel integration between installation parameters and the annual average solar energy is presented, to produce the maximum energy output. The results suggest an increase in energy yields of 4% compared to the conventional scheme, where tilt angle is equal to the latitude and the PV modules are facing south. This paper uses a real-time dataset for the NEOM region in Saudi Arabia to validate the superiority of the proposed model compared to the conventional scheme, but it can be implemented as a scheme wherever real-time data are available.

Online spiritual meets (OSMs) and user behavior – A divine application of technology during COVID-19

The use of ICTs for teaching and learning saw an incremental increase during COVID-19. Religious institutions had to rely on ICTs to continue their congregations under strict lockdown and social distancing norms. Sant Nirankari Mission (SNM), a spiritual organization, having branches worldwide, used ICT platforms for online spiritual meets (OSMs). To examine how the ICTs influenced and advanced one of SNM's core functions, viz. spiritual congregations during the pandemic, a quantitative study grounded on the Unified Technology Acceptance and Use Technology Model (UTAUT) was conducted. The study sought to examine whether perceptions of performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions influence devotees' adoption intentions, use, and recommendation intentions of OSMs. Spiritual inclinations of users (devotees) and their attitude toward the technology were included in the model. Individual differences like age, gender, and voluntariness were hypothesized to act as moderators to influence the strength of relationships amongst these constructs. The study's results revealed that only facilitating conditions determined the intentions to use OSMs. Spiritual inclinations determined the use and recommendation intentions of users. Performance expectancy and effort expectancy influenced users' attitudes towards technology, which in turn influenced the use of OSMs by devotees. We suggest continuing the research into the phenomenon of OSMs and considering the influence of user networks and task-technology fit. Institutions are suggested to communicate the benefits and usage guidelines and make religious/spiritual case for the adoption of ICT. • Intentions and usage of OSMs by devotees of a religious group. • Spiritual inclinations drive technology adoption and usage. • Facilitating conditions emerge as the most significant factor. • No moderation effect of devotee attributes between UTAUT antecedents and behavioral intentions. • Spiritual inclinations rather than behavioral intentions drive the actual usage of OSMs. [ FROM AUTHOR]

A Study of Cumulative COVID-19 Mortality Trends Associated with Ethnic-Racial Composition, Income Inequality, and Party Inclination among US Counties.

This research analyzes the association between cumulative COVID-19 mortality and ethnic-racial composition, income inequality, and political party inclination across counties in the United States. The study extends prior research by taking a long view-examining cumulative mortality burdens over the first 900 days of the COVID-19 pandemic at five time points (via negative binomial models) and as trajectories of cumulative mortality trends (via growth curve models). The analysis shows that counties with a higher Republican vote share display a higher cumulative mortality, especially over longer periods of the pandemic. It also demonstrates that counties with a higher composition of ethnic-racial minorities, especially Blacks, bear a much higher cumulative mortality burden, and such an elevated burden would be even higher when a county has a higher level of income inequality. For counties with a higher proportion of Hispanic population, while the burden is lower than that for counties with a higher proportion of Blacks, the cumulative COVID-19 mortality burden still is elevated and compounded by income inequality, at any given time point during the pandemic.

Online spiritual meets (OSMs) and user behavior – A divine application of technology during COVID-19

The use of ICTs for teaching and learning saw an incremental increase during COVID-19. Religious institutions had to rely on ICTs to continue their congregations under strict lockdown and social distancing norms. Sant Nirankari Mission (SNM), a spiritual organization, having branches worldwide, used ICT platforms for online spiritual meets (OSMs). To examine how the ICTs influenced and advanced one of SNM's core functions, viz. spiritual congregations during the pandemic, a quantitative study grounded on the Unified Technology Acceptance and Use Technology Model (UTAUT) was conducted. The study sought to examine whether perceptions of performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions influence devotees' adoption intentions, use, and recommendation intentions of OSMs. Spiritual inclinations of users (devotees) and their attitude toward the technology were included in the model. Individual differences like age, gender, and voluntariness were hypothesized to act as moderators to influence the strength of relationships amongst these constructs. The study's results revealed that only facilitating conditions determined the intentions to use OSMs. Spiritual inclinations determined the use and recommendation intentions of users. Performance expectancy and effort expectancy influenced users' attitudes towards technology, which in turn influenced the use of OSMs by devotees. We suggest continuing the research into the phenomenon of OSMs and considering the influence of user networks and task-technology fit. Institutions are suggested to communicate the benefits and usage guidelines and make religious/spiritual case for the adoption of ICT.

You've Got to Have (Good) Faith: Good Faith's Trajectory in Anglo- Canadian Contract Law Post-Wastech and the Potential for a Duty to Renegotiate

[...]it illustrates how Article 1195 of the Code civil des français (CCF) and Articles 6.2.1-6.2.3 of the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts (UNIDROIT) address contractual hardship. [...]it establishes that Anglo-Canadian contract law is moving in a direction that prioritizes reasonable contracting behaviour and approves of the courts' powers to provide relief where contracts are unfair. Anglo-Canadian contract law sets a very high threshold for frustration,9 and does not accept that hardship constitutes a frustrating event (however, scholars have argued that the two are not mutually exclusive).10 Anglo-Canadian contract law has embraced Lord Radcliffe's approach of the "radical change" in the nature of the obligation, as enunciated in Davis Contractors Ltd v Fareham Urban District Council.11 In Davis, a contractor was hired to build 78 houses for £92,424 over the course of 8 months.12 Due to labor shortages, the contract took 22 months to complete and the costs to build each house rose to £115, 233.13 The court denied the contractor's claim for frustration, seeing that the turn of events was not unforeseeable.14 Lord Radcliffe stated the test as follows: The frustration doctrine must find an appropriate balance between the inclination to hold people to their bargains, notwithstanding the fact that the bargain has become unexpectedly less attractive to them and, on the other hand, an inclination to relieve the parties from their bargains where a refusal to do so appears unjust and may result in the unjust enrichment of the other party.18 Given these tensions, judges have been cautious and confined the doctrine of frustration to rare circumstances.19 This narrow approach-which bears similarities to Québec's20-supports the argument that there is a gap in the law pertaining to changed circumstances, and that it would be appropriate to develop good faith to assist parties facing hardship arising from extenuating circumstances (such as the Covid-19 pandemic).

Substantial Phase Exploration for Intuiting Covid using form Expedient with Variance Sensor

This article focuses on implementing wireless sensors for monitoring exact distance between two individuals and to check whether everybody have sanitized their hands for stopping the spread of Corona Virus Disease (COVID). The idea behind this method is executed by implementing an objective function which focuses on maximizing distance, energy of nodes and minimizing the cost of implementation. Also, the proposed model is integrated with a variance detector which is denoted as Controlled Incongruity Algorithm (CIA). This variance detector is will sense the value and it will report to an online monitoring system named Things speak and for visualizing the sensed values it will be simulated using MATLAB. Even loss which is produced by sensors is found to be low when CIA is implemented. To validate the efficiency of proposed method it has been compared with prevailing methods and results prove that the better performance is obtained and the proposed method is improved by 76.8% than other outcomes observed from existing literatures. © 2022. by the authors. Licensee Agora University, Oradea, Romania.

Impact of Seat Inclination and Misalignment on Airborne Pollutant Transport in a Single-Aisle Aircraft Cabin

Airborne pollutant transport in an aircraft cabin is greatly affected by the created airflow. The seat layout can impact the flow and thus the pollutant transport. Most studies have adopted symmetric upright seats for simplicity. The influence of seat inclination and seat misalignment on airflow and pollutant transport is still unclear. This investigation adopted a validated computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method to study the airflow and airborne pollutant distribution in a single-aisle cabin with seven rows of seats. The pollutant was assumed to be released from a passenger seated in the middle of three adjacent seats. A total of five different seat layouts were considered, including all of the upright seats, the inclination of three adjacent seats, the inclination of all of the seats in half a cabin, the inclination of all of the seats in a whole cabin, and the misalignment seat rows across the aisle. The flows in both the cross and longitudinal sections were compared. The pollutant concentrations in the respiratory zone of the passengers in different seats were adopted to evaluate the cross-contamination. The results revealed that the symmetric seat layout aids to circumscribe the released pollutant in a small region and reduces the cross-contamination either by maintaining the upright seats or inclining all of the seats. Contrarily, any inclination of seats or a misalignment of seat rows should be avoided during the pandemic since an asymmetric seat layout would generate asymmetric flow and strengthen the spreading of pollutants.

Racial/Ethnic Heterogeneity and Rural-Urban Disparity of COVID-19 Case Fatality Ratio in the USA: a Negative Binomial and GIS-Based Analysis.

The 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has exacerbated inequality in the United States of America (USA). Black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) are disproportionately affected by the pandemic. This study examines determinants of COVID-19 case fatality ratio (CFR) based on publicly sourced data from January 1 to December 18, 2020, and sociodemographic and rural-urban continuum data from the US Census Bureau. Nonspatial negative binomial Poisson regression and geographically weighted Poisson regression were applied to estimate the global and local relationships between the CFR and predictors-rural-urban continuum, political inclination, and race/ethnicity in 2407 rural counties. The mean COVID-19 CFR among rural counties was 1.79 (standard deviation (SD) = 1.07; 95% CI 1.73-1.84) higher than the total US counties (M = 1.69, SD = 1.18; 95% CI: 1.65-1.73). Based on the global NB model, CFR was positively associated with counties classified as "completely rural" (incidence rate ratio (IRR) = 1.24; 95% CI: 1.12-1.39) and "mostly rural" (IRR = 1.26; 95% CI: 1.15-1.38) relative to "mostly urban" counties. Nonspatial regression indicates that COVID-19 CFR increases by a factor of 8.62, 5.87, 2.61, and 1.36 for one unit increase in county-level percent Blacks, Hispanics, American Indians, and Asian/Pacific Islanders, respectively. Local spatial regression shows CFR was significantly higher in rural counties with a higher share of BIPOC in the Northeast and Midwest regions, and political inclination predicted COVID-19 CFR in rural counties in the Midwest region. In conclusion, spatial and racial/ethnic disparities exist for COVID-19 CFR across the US rural counties, and findings from this study have implications for public health.