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This research investigates the strategic decision related to original content provision and business model selection within the rapidly evolving online video industry. We develop a two-sided market model involving a video platform, users, and advertisers to analyze how the platform balances subscription and advertising revenue while offering original content. This study finds that the amount of original content provided directly influences market equilibrium, affecting the platform’s choice between a purely subscription-based model or a mixed model. The cost of original content production plays a critical role in this decision-making process. High production costs may lead the platform to favor a mixed model, offering less original content to generate both subscription and ad revenue. Lower costs, however, encourage a subscription model with more original content to boost subscribing revenue. Additionally, factors such as network externalities between users and advertisers also impact the business model choice. Importantly, the model shows that allowing free users limited access to original content can expand both subscriber and advertiser engagement, enabling platforms to enhance dual revenue streams without having to sacrifice one for the other.

Conventional dredging of ditches and streams to ensure agricultural drainage and flood mitigation can have severe environmental impacts. The aim of this paper is to investigate the potential benefits of an alternative, nature-based two-stage channel (TSC) design with floodplains excavated along the main channel. Through a literature survey, investigations at Finnish field sites and expert interviews, we assessed the performance, costs, and monetary environmental benefits of TSCs in comparison to conventional dredging, as well as the bottlenecks in their financing and governance. We found evidence supporting the expected longer-term functioning of drainage as well as larger plant and fish biodiversity in TSCs compared to conventional dredging. The TSC design likely improves water quality since the floodplains retain suspended sediment and phosphorus and remove nitrogen. In the investigated case, the additional value of phosphorus retention and conservation of protected species through the TSC design was 2.4 times higher than the total costs. We demonstrate how TSCs can be made eligible for the obligatory vegetated riparian buffer of the European Union agri-environmental subsidy scheme (CAP-AES) by optimising their spatial application with respect to other buffer measures, and recommend to publicly finance their additional costs compared to conventional dredging at priority sites. Further studies on biodiversity impacts and long-term performance of two-stage channels are required.

International relations scholars have struggled to adequately link domestic and international levels in theoretical models and causal analyses of foreign policy, despite widespread acknowledgment of the need to do so. This study elaborates on this challenge by assessing the utility of several policy process frameworks that have so far been underutilized in foreign policy analysis. The assumptions of one particularly fruitful method, the Two-Level Game, will be compared with those of three policy process frameworks: the Advocacy Coalition Framework, the Multiple Streams Framework, and Punctuated Equilibrium Theory. When analyzing three specific concepts (the question of rationality, the dynamics of agenda setting, and the strategic action of relevant actors), it is apparent that the assumptions of the policy process frameworks largely clash with those of the Two-Level Game, raising the potential for their augmentation of the field of foreign policy analysis despite their relative underuse. Los académicos de las relaciones internacionales han luchado por vincular adecuadamente los niveles doméstico e internacional en modelos teóricos de análisis causales de políticas exteriores a pesar del reconocimiento general de lo necesario que es. Este estudio profundizará en este desafío al evaluar la utilidad de varios marcos de procesos de políticas que hasta el momento han sido subutilizados en el análisis de la política exterior. Los supuestos de un método particularmente exitoso, el Juego de dos niveles, se compararán con los de tres marcos de procesos de políticas: el Marco de coalición de defensa, el Marco de flujos múltiples y la Teoría del equilibrio puntuado. Al analizar tres conceptos específicos (la cuestión de la racionalidad, la dinámica del establecimiento de la agenda y la acción estratégica de los actores relevantes), es evidente que los supuestos de los marcos de los procesos de las políticas coinciden en gran medida con los del Juego de dos niveles, lo que plantea potencial para su aumento del campo de análisis de política exterior a pesar de su infrautilización relativa. 国际关系学者已努力将理论模型中的国内和国际层面与外交政策因果分析进行充分连接，尽管这一需求受到广泛肯定。本文将通过评估几个在外交政策分析中尚未进行完全利用的政策过程框架的用处，进而阐述这一挑战。双层博弈是一项特别富有成效的方法，其提出的假设将和其他三个政策过程框架假设进行比较：倡议联盟框架、多源流框架和间断平衡理论。当分析三个特定概念时（理性之疑、议程设定动态、和相关行为者的战略行动），显而易见的是，这些政策过程框架提出的假设在很大程度上与双层博弈理论假设相悖，这提高了前者关于外交政策分析领域的论点潜力，尽管其具备相对的未完全利用性。

The paper presents a Process Integration application for waste heat utilisation from exhaust gas streams with partial condensation. It is based on the hot composite curve construction representing the gaseous mixture cooling with accounting for the condensable vapour part's gas–liquid equilibrium. With cold composite curve for streams requiring heating, the Pinch Point is determined. On this basis, the heat exchanger network (HEN) structure for utilised heat integration into the factory's energy system is developed. It accounts for the possible splitting of two-phase flow on gas and liquid streams and plate heat exchanger (PHE) type selection for specific positions in HEN. The method is illustrated by a case study of heat utilisation from exhaust gases after superheated steam tobacco drying and flue gases from natural gas-fired boiler. Heat transfer areas of PHEs in HEN are optimised with the total annualised cost as an objective function. The received solution's payback period is less than four months, with a substantial saving of energy, up to 10.9 TJ/y. It also leads to the reduction of CO2 emissions up to 600 t/y. About 3830 t/y of steam is not discharged to the atmosphere and as the water returned to the production process.Graphic abstractTo manuscript “Integration of Low-Grade Heat from Exhaust Gases into Energy System of the Enterprise”

A geoelectrical characterization of a petroleum effluents-contaminated site and geochemical analysis of nearby water sources for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were used to ascertain the extent of pollution of the subsurface around an oil depot site. Six traverses of 2-D electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) was laid using Wenner array with uniform electrode spacing ranging from 5 to 25 m at 5 m incremental step. The field resistivity data were processed and inverted using RES2DINV to obtain 2D model sections of the traverses. Water samples were collected from 15 sampling points and analyzed for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) using Agilent 7890A Gas Chromatography (GC) coupled with 5975C mass spectrometry. The 2D ERT sections showed low resistivity anomalies with values < 100 Ωm as mature/biodegraded LNAPLs plume up to average depth of 6—9 m. The concentrations of total PAHs in surface and groundwater ranged from 0.01 to 0.09 mg/L and 0.01 to 0.25 mg/L, respectively. The results show a good concurrence between the low resistivity anomalies and the summation of total PAHs greater than permissible limit in more than 70% of analysed water samples. The non-carcinogenic risk is normally below 1.0, whereas the total cancer risk (TCR) values for adults and children via oral ingestion and dermal contact are above the permissible limit of 1.00E-04, with children being the most susceptible. This study highlights the importance of integrated methods for better understanding of the extent of petroleum effluent contamination and recommends outright stoppage of effluent release into the adjoining stream.

The present study examined the biodegradation rate of benzene vapors in a two phase stirred tank bioreactor by a bacterial consortium obtained from wastewater of an oil industry refinery house. Initially, the ability of the microbial consortium for degrading benzene was evaluated before running the bioreactor. The gaseous samples from inlet and outlet of bioreactor were directly injected into a gas chromatograph to determine benzene concentrations. Carbone oxide concentration at the inlet and outlet of bioreactor were also measured with a CO2 meter to determine the mineralization rate of benzene. Influence of the second non-aqueous phase (silicon oil) has been emphasized, so at the first stage the removal efficiency (RE) and elimination capacity (EC) of benzene vapors were evaluated without any organic phase and in the second stage, 10% of silicon oil was added to bioreactor media as an organic phase. Addition of silicon oil increased the biodegradation performance up to an inlet loading of 5580 mg/m 3 , a condition at which, the elimination capacity and removal efficiency were 181 g/m 3 /h and 95% respectively. The elimination rate of benzene increased by 38% in the presence of 10% of silicone oil. The finding of this study demonstrated that two phase partition bioreactors (TPPBs) are potentially effective tools for the treatment of gas streams contaminated with high concentrations of poorly water soluble organic contaminant, such as benzene.

In this study, an interval-parameter two-stage stochastic semi-infinite programming (ITSSP) method was developed for water resources management under uncertainty. As a new extension of mathematical programming methods, the developed ITSSP approach has advantages in uncertainty reflection and policy analysis. In order to better account for uncertainties, the ITSSP approach is expressed with discrete intervals, functional intervals and probability density functions. The ITSSP method integrates the two-stage stochastic programming (TSP), interval programming (IP) and semi-infinite programming (SIP) within a general optimization framework. The ITSSP has an infinite number of constraints because it uses functional intervals with time (t) being an independent variable. The different t values within the range [0, 90] lead to different constraints. At same time, ITSSP also includes probability distribution information. The ITSSP method can incorporate pre-defined water resource management policies directly into its optimization process to analyze various policy scenarios having different economic penalties when the promised amounts are not delivered. The model is applied to a water resource management system with three users and four periods (corresponding to winter, spring, summer and fall, respectively). Solutions of the ITSSP model provide desired water allocation patterns, which maximize both the system's benefits and feasibility. The results indicate that reasonable interval solutions were generated for objective function values and decision variables, thus a number of decision alternatives can be generated under different levels of stream flow. The obtained solutions are useful for decision makers to obtain insight regarding the tradeoffs between environmental, economic and system reliability criteria.

In this study, an interval-parameter fuzzy-stochastic two-stage programming (IFSTP) approach is developed for irrigation planning within an agriculture system under multiple uncertainties. A concept of the distribution with fuzzy-interval probability (DFIP) is defined to address multiple uncertainties expressed as integration of intervals, fuzzy sets, and probability distributions. IFSTP integrates the interval programming, two-stage stochastic programming, and fuzzy-stochastic programming within a general optimization framework. IFSTP incorporates the pre-regulated water resources management policies directly into its optimization process to analyze various policy scenarios; each scenario has different economic penalty when the promised amounts are not delivered. IFSTP is applied to an irrigation planning in a water resources management system. Solutions from IFSTP provide desired water allocation patterns, which maximize both the system's benefits and feasibility. The results indicate that reasonable solutions are generated for objective function values and decision variables; thus, a number of decision alternatives can be generated under different levels of stream flows.

We examine the performance of our approach for calculating the total scattering coefficient of both non-absorbing and absorbing aerosol at ambient conditions from aircraft data. Our extended examination involves airborne in situ data collected by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Gulf Stream 1 aircraft during winter over Cape Cod and the western North Atlantic Ocean as part of the Two-Column Aerosol Project (TCAP). The particle population represented by the winter dataset, in contrast with its summer counterpart, contains more hygroscopic particles and particles with an enhanced ability to absorb sunlight due to the larger fraction of black carbon. Moreover, the winter observations are characterized by more frequent clouds and a larger fraction of super-micron particles. We calculate model total scattering coefficient at ambient conditions using size spectra measured by optical particle counters (OPCs) and ambient complex refractive index (RI) estimated from measured chemical composition and relative humidity (RH). We demonstrate that reasonable agreement (~20% on average) between the observed and calculated scattering can be obtained under subsaturated ambient conditions (RH < 80%) by applying both screening for clouds and chemical composition data for the RI-based correction of the OPC-derived size spectra.