• An ICA was developed for P. aeruginosa detection. • The ICA strip showed a limit of detection of 2.41 × 10⁴ CFU/mL. • The ICA could be applied to detect P. aeruginosa in water and food samples.

Objectives: To assess whole-liver texture analysis on T1 maps for risk stratification of advanced fibrosis in patients with suspected nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Methods: This retrospective study included 53 patients. Histogram and texture parameters (volume, mean, SD, median, 5th percentile, 95th percentile, skewness, kurtosis, diff-entropy, diff-variance, contrast, and entropy) of T1 maps were calculated based on the semi-automatically segmented whole-liver volume. A two-step approach combining the Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease Fibrosis Score (NFS) and Fibrosis-4 Index (FIB-4) with the liver stiffness measurement (LSM) for the risk stratification was used. Univariate analysis was performed to identify significant parameters. Logistic regression models were then run on the significant features. Diagnostic performance was evaluated with receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis. Results: In total, 33 (62%) subjects had a low risk and 20 (38%) subjects had an intermediate-to-high risk of advanced fibrosis. The following significantly different parameters with the best performance were diff-entropy, entropy, and diff-variance, with AUROC 0.837 (95% CI 0.73–0.95), 0.821 (95% CI 0.71–0.94), and 0.807 (95% CI 0.69–0.93). The optimal combination of median, 5th percentile, and diff-entropy as a multivariate model improved the diagnostic performance to diagnose an intermediate-to-high risk of advanced fibrosis with AUROC 0.902(95% CI 0.79–0.97). Conclusions: Parameters obtained by histogram and texture analysis of T1 maps may be a noninvasive analytical approach for stratifying the risk of advanced fibrosis in NAFLD. Key Points: • Variable flip angle (VFA) T1 mapping can be used to acquire 3D T1 maps within a clinically acceptable duration. • Whole-liver histogram and texture parameters on T1 maps in patients with NAFLD can distinguish those with an intermediate-to-high risk of advanced fibrosis. • The multivariate model of combination of texture parameters improved the diagnostic performance for a high risk of advanced fibrosis and clinical parameters offer no added value to the multivariate model.

Focusing on the closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) comprising the manufacturer, retailer, and consumers in the waste products market, this study investigates how the government addresses the adverse selection problem on the hidden recovery costs of retailer and how it manages the moral hazard problem on the level of retailer’s hidden efforts. Based on incentive theory, a government incentive regulation aiming at maximizing social welfare is established in this study. In addition, a list of contracts with transfer payments is presented to elucidate the retailer’ collection efficiency and motivate the retailer to make the optimal investment. Besides, the impact of related factors on the recovery cost and social welfare level using numerical simulations is validated. Under government regulation, the retailer could maximize profit only by reporting the true recovery technology-type information to the government. Moreover, the retailer with high-recovery efficiency could obtain both retained profit and additional information rent. Finally, as the retailer made efforts to increase the recovery level, it increased investment cost, which affected the enthusiasm of enhancing the retailer’s recovery efficiency. Thus, the government should not blindly pursue the enhancement of recycling efficiency regardless of the cost, but should focus more on the control of recycling equipment and technology cost. Overall, this study facilitates scientific policy development and provides a reference for promoting CLSC operations.

This paper investigates how the government can develop subsidies or tax policies to incent power plants to effectively carry out carbon capture to reduce carbon emissions. According to the government’s incentive model for carbon capture power plants, the regulation mechanism is developed when government controls carbon emission. When regional or national carbon emission quota is tense, significant effect can be obtained when regulators make regulations to take off low efficiency power plants. In addition, it is verified that the regulators should not blindly pursue a reduction in carbon emissions regardless of the cost. Therefore, regulators need to pay more attention to control the costs of carbon capture equipment and technology. Finally, by parametric and numerical analyses, the conditions of the power plant to maximize corporate surplus are further studied.

Corporate environmental responsibility has received considerable attention. In our study, we consider a supply chain in which a manufacturer invests in green technology to decrease the carbon footprint. The main issue addressed here is how the manufacturer selects the optimal online selling format between agency selling and reselling to ensure profitability with a lower carbon footprint. In an uncertain market with considering different pricing sequences in dual-channel promotion,we explore six scenarios. The results show that the different pricing sequences will not affect the equilibrium green degree and pricing strategies under agency selling, whereas it may result in an improved greenness in reselling format. Furthermore, under the interaction of uncertain demand, pricing sequence and green technology investment, we reveal the agent selling format is not always superior to the reselling format with a double-marginalization effect, which contrary to the general intuition. Specifically, in an optimistic market, the manufacturer is more profitable in reselling format when the promotion price set in online channel prior to traditional channel, and in a pessimistic market, the opposite pricing sequence formulated will bring a considerable benefit to the manufacturer.