Potential impacts of policies to reduce purchasing of ultra-processed foods in Mexico at different stages of the social transition: an agent-based modeling approach

Objectives: To develop a simulation framework for assessing how combinations of taxes, nutrition warning labels, and advertising levels could affect purchasing of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) in Latin American countries, and to understand whether policies reinforce or reduce pre-existing social disparities in UPF consumption. Design: We developed an agent-based simulation model using international evidence regarding the effect of price, nutrition warning labels, and advertising on UPF purchasing. Setting: We estimated policy effects in scenarios representing two stages of the “social transition” in UPF purchasing: 1) a pre-transition scenario, where UPF purchasing is higher among high-income households, similar to patterns in Mexico, 2) a post-transition scenario where UPF purchasing is highest among low-income households, similar to patterns in Chile. Participants: A population of 1,000 individual-agents with levels of age, income, educational attainment, and UPF purchasing similar to adult women in Mexico. Results: A 20% tax would decrease purchasing by 24% relative to baseline in both the pre- and post-transition scenarios, an effect that is similar in magnitude to that of a nutrition warning label policy. A 50% advertising increase or decrease had a comparatively small effect. Nutrition warning labels were most effective among those with higher levels of educational attainment. Labeling reduced inequities in the pre-transition scenario (i.e., highest UPF purchasing among the highest socioeconomic group), but widened inequities in the post-transition scenario. Conclusions: Effective policy levers are available to reduce UPF purchasing, but policymakers should anticipate that equity impacts will differ depending on existing social patterns in UPF purchasing.

Investigation Into Boundary Layer Transition Using Wall-Resolved LES and Modeled Inflow Turbulence

The objective of the present paper is to investigate the transition scenario of the flow around a typical section of a wind turbine blade exposed to different levels of inflow turbulence. As a first step towards this objective, a rather low Reynolds number of Rec = 105 is studied at a fixed angle of attack but under five different turbulence intensities (TI) up to TI = 11.2 %. Using wall-resolved large-eddy simulations combined with an inflow procedure relying on synthetically generated turbulence and a source-term formulation for its injection within the computational domain, relevant flow features such as the separation bubble, inflectional instabilities and streaks can be investigated. The study shows that the transition scenario significantly changes with rising TI, where the influence of inflectional instabilities due to an adverse pressure gradient decreases, while the influence of streaks increases resulting in a shift from the classical scenario of natural transition to bypass transition. The primary instability mechanism in the separation bubble is found to be inflectional and its origin is traced back to the region upstream of the separation. Thus, the inviscid inflectional instability of the separated shear layer is an extension of the instability of the attached adverse pressure gradient boundary layer observed upstream. The boundary layer is evaluated to be receptive to external disturbances such that the initial energy within the boundary layer is proportional to the square of the turbulence intensity. Boundary layer streaks were found to influence the instantaneous separation location depending on their orientation. A varicose mode of instability is observed on the overlap of the leading edge of a high-speed streak with the trailing edge of a low-speed streak. The critical amplitude of this instability was analyzed to be about 32 % of the free-stream velocity.

Metastasis Directed Therapy and/or Systemic Therapy in Hormone-naive Oligometastatic Prostate Cancer Patient: an Emerging Dilemma

"The hormone-naive oligometastatic prostate cancer is a challenging setting for the radiation oncology community, as it represents a sort of transition scenario potentially suitable for two different approaches: a local ablative treatment alone vs a metastasisdirected treatment with the addition of hormone therapy. The choice to add androgen deprivation therapy in the oligorecurrent hormone-sensitive patient is a matter of debate, given the detrimental impact on quality of life and the number of adverse events. To date, there is no clear agreement on the optimal management of this subset of patients. As some authors highlight the attractiveness of a local approach alone, as well tolerated, easily repeatible and with very limited costs, on the other hand, other authors focus the need to cover the micrometastatic disease, often not detectable, even with the newly available imaging modalities. In this commentary, we briefly summarize the literature data in support of both therapeutic strategies."

Application of sensitivity analysis in DYMOND/Dakota to fuel cycle transition scenarios

The ability to perform sensitivity analysis has been enabled for the nuclear fuel cycle simulator DYMOND through its coupling with the design and analysis toolkit Dakota. To test and demonstrate these new capabilities, a transition scenario and multi-parameter study were devised. The transition scenario represents a partial transition from the US nuclear fleet to a closed fuel cycle with small modular LWRs and fast reactors fueled by reprocessed used nuclear fuel. Four uncertain parameters in this transition were studied – start date of reprocessing, total reprocessing capacity, the nuclear energy demand growth, and the rate at which the fast reactors are deployed – with respect to their impact on four response metrics. The responses – total natural uranium consumed, maximum annual enrichment capacity required, total disposed mass, and total cost of the nuclear fuel cycle – were chosen based on measures known to be of interest in transition scenarios [2] and to be significantly impacted by the varying parameters. Analysis of this study was performed both from the direct sampling and through surrogate models developed in Dakota to calculate the global sensitivity measures Sobol’ indices. This example application of this new capability showed that the most consequential parameter to most metrics was the share of new build capacity that is fast reactors. However, for the cost metric, the scaling factor of the energy demand growth was significant and had synergistic behavior with the fast reactor new build share.

Determinants and barriers of PV self-consumption in Spain from the perception of the installers for the promotion of distributed energy systems

Currently, self-consumption and distributed energy facilities are considered as viable and sustainable solutions in the energy transition scenario within the European Union. In a low carbon society, the exploitation of renewables for self-consumption is closely tied to the energy market at the territorial level, in search of a compromise between competitiveness and the sustainable exploitation of resources. Investments in these facilities are highly sensitive to the existence of favourable conditions at the territorial level, and the energy policies adopted in the European Union have contributed positively to the distributed renewables development and the reduction of their costs in the last decade. However, the number of the installed facilities is uneven in the European Countries and those factors that are more determinant for the investments in self-consumption are still under investigation. In this scenario, this paper presents the main results obtained through the analysis of the determinants in self-consumption investments from a case study in Spain, where the penetration of this type of facilities is being less relevant than in other countries. As a novelty of this study, the main influential drivers and barriers in self-consumption are classified and analysed from the installers' perspective. On the basis of the information obtained from the installers involved in the installation of these facilities, incentives and barriers are analysed within the existing legal framework and the potential specific lines of the promotion for the effective deployment of self-consumption in an energy transition scenario.

Cenários para a matriz de geração de eletricidade do Ceará em 2050

Based on the worldwide proposition of energy matrix scenarios for 2050, the objective of this article is to present scenarios of electricity generation for Ceará in 2050, showing the participation of sources already used in the state's electric matrix and adding new ones. The article proposes three scenarios: a conservative one, where the present proportion of electricity generation sources of the state is maintained, a transitional one, with 50% of electricity generation from non-renewable sources and the other 50% from renewable sources, and 100% renewable, without the use of fossil or nuclear fuels. Estimates for 2050 in the state are obtained by extrapolating generation data from 2011 to 2017, reaching an estimated 94,775 GWh. In the conservative scenario, it is observed that half of this generation is made by thermoelectric plants and the other half by wind farms. In the transition scenario, dominated by the use of natural gas, the exponential growth of photovoltaic generation stands out. In the 100% renewable scenario, dominated by wind farms, in addition to the similar growth of photovoltaic generation as in the transition scenario, we highlight the use of urban solid waste and solar thermal concentration plants.