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The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between renewable energy and economic growth of Bulgaria.

This study analyzes the relationship between renewable energy and economic growth of Bulgaria for the period 1990-2016, based on annual data, by using the Toda–Yamamoto analysis and Autogressive Distrubuted Lag (ARDL) bound test. This period is characterized by the democratization of the Balkans and several crisis cycles in Bulgaria. Renewable energy consumption (REC, percentage of total final energy consumption), renewable electricity output (REO, percentage of total electricity output) and economic growth (GDP constant 2010 US$) were used. The levels or differences of the variables that are stationary were investigated using the augmented Dickey–Fuller (ADF), Philips–Perron (PP) and Kwiatkowski-Philips-Schmidt-Shin (KPSS) unit root tests.

Three different results were obtained from this study. One showed that renewable energy consumption and renewable electricity output are the causes of economic growth. Another result of this study is that economic growth and renewable electricity output are the causes of renewable energy consumption. The last result is that economic growth and renewable energy consumption are not causes of renewable electricity output. There was no long-term relationship between variables.

The ARDL and Toda–Yamamoto tests were used because of lack of data sets. Thus, it is estimated that there is no long-term relationship.

This study is an original work for Bulgaria, showing the results of the relationship between renewable energy and economic growth. In line with the results of this study, renewable energy projects related to Bulgaria can be predicted.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline Project (TANAP) on industrial production in Turkey. The TANAP is a project which ensures the security of the country’s natural gas supply and encourages a decrease in energy prices. So, this study investigates TANAP’s efforts to decrease gas prices, as well as the effects of gas prices on industrial production.

The data include gas prices and industrial production index series. Gas prices are approached for industrial users (nonresidential) in Turkey and industrial production index series have been discussed for whole industries. The Johansen cointegration method has been used to analyze the data, spanning the period from 2005M01 to 2015M11.

Results indicate that the decrease in the energy prices has a positive effect on the industrial production index, which is accepted as a basic sign of economic growth. Accordingly, it has been proved that gas priced had a significant effect on industrial production in Turkish economy during the respective periods.

This study has supported the argument that TANAP helps to decrease gas prices in Turkey. It can be said that a decrease in gas price is expected to have positive effect on industrial production in the long-term.

The present study shows that projects such as TANAP can help gas importing countries like Turkey to decrease gas prices and increase industrial production. In this context, this study supports projects that decreasing gas prices for energy importing countries in the long term.

The purpose of this paper is to implement an optimization approach for the tilting‐pad journal bearing using the genetic algorithm (GA), and compare the results with the method of feasible design (MFD).

The optimum design of a five‐pad tilting‐pad bearing is studied for the optimal performance, considering system minimum power loss along with design criteria such as: fluid film thickness, film temperature, and film pressure with respect to design variables consisting of pad axial length to journal diameter ratio, pad arc length, bearing radial clearance, pad offset factor, and pad preload factor.

The algorithms are repeated until no search direction can be found that will improve objective function without violating the constraints. Thus, the algorithms are performed for complete search to get the best possible solution of the design. The comparison mainly focuses on the empirical solutions. The GA obtained reasonably good results for the objective function and comparable to the MFD.

The availability of the GA is certainly of value because it allows the exploration of many different configurations of design variables and therefore also contributes to the better knowledge of the rotor‐bearing system behavior in general.

This paper aims to utilize an evolutionary algorithm as an optimization technique to solve design optimization of a pivoted‐pad journal bearing performance characteristics considering objective functions which are contradictory to each other. These functions include fluid film thickness, film temperature, and power loss along with design variables vector, which consists of pad axial length to journal diameter ratio, pad arc length, bearing radial clearance, pad offset factor, and pad preload factor.

In order to improve performance characteristics of the pivoted‐pad journal bearing, the genetic algorithm (GA) was employed and the modeling of the bearing was represented with the finite element method. Also, a numerical method, global criterion, was conducted to validate the efficiency and applicability of the proposed method.

This paper utilizes the GA to solve multi‐objective optimization of the pivoted‐pad journal bearing performance governed by design variables such as pad axial length to journal diameter ratio, pad arc length, bearing radial clearance, pad offset factor, and pad preload factor for a range of rotational speed. The global criterion method (GCM) proves that the proposed method is very efficient and useful for the optimal design of the pivoted‐pad journal bearings. An acceptable results agreement between the GA and the GCM has been obtained. The GA is well suited to find the optimum solutions with a high probability since it starts with an initial set of solutions rather than a single solution. The GA explores different areas of search space in parallel and, it is good at exploitation.

With the help of the proposed method, it will be possible to have an idea about bearing geometric parameters on a more rational basis, and to better predict the dynamic performance of rotor systems supported on the pivoted‐pad journal bearings.

The purpose of this paper is to apply a stochastic Frontier production model to Canadian manufacturing industries, to investigate the sources of total factor productivity (TFP) growth. As productivity (growth) appears to be the single most important determinant of a nation's living standard or its level of real income over long periods of time, it is important to better understand the sources of productivity growth. In Canada, TFP growth is the major contributing factor (relative to changes in capital intensity) to labour productivity growth, particularly in manufacturing sector. However, the TFP gap is also the main source of labour productivity gap between Canada and other industrialized (Organization for Economic Co‐operation and Development) countries in recent years.

In this paper, a stochastic Frontier production model is applied to Canadian manufacturing industries to investigate the sources of TFP growth. Using a comprehensive panel data set of 18 industries over the period 1990‐2005 and the approach proposed by Kumbhakar et al. and Kumbhakar and Lovell, TFP growth is decomposed into technological progress (TP), changes in technical efficiency, changes in allocative efficiency and scale effects.

The decomposition reveals that during the period under study, TP has been the main driving force of productivity growth, while negative efficiency changes observed in certain industries have contributed to reduce average productivity growth. In addition, the empirical results show that research and development expenditure, information and communications technology investment, as well as trade openness exert a positive impact on productivity growth through the channel of efficiency gains.

The author argues that the decomposition carried out in this study may be very helpful to elicit the correct diagnosis of Canada's productivity problem and develop effective policies to reverse the situation, thereby reducing Canada's lagging productivity gap.

As our time spent on social networking sites (SNS) is increasing, more people are facing the psychological and mental consequences of SNS use. Given the growing body of research on the relationship between social network use and life satisfaction, this study aims to provide an overview of empirical studies through a systematic literature review.

As a result of the screening process, 43 articles were included in the review in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. First, the characteristics of the studies included in the review, such as sample country, data collection method and data analysis method, are presented. Then, the findings on the relationship between SNS use and life satisfaction are outlined.

Based on the results, it is seen that the relationship between SNS use and life satisfaction varies considerably with the sample and platforms studied. Theoretically, this systematic review provides a comprehensive picture of the relationship between SNS use and life satisfaction and encourages researchers to study the topic further.

There are reviews on the relationship between SNS use and psychological factors such as self-esteem, loneliness or depression. In the reviews, limited variables such as problematic social network use, adolescents’ social network use and social network addiction have been examined instead of general social network use. However, the number of reviews on the relationship between social network use and life satisfaction is quite limited. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this systematic review is both a comprehensive literature review and one of the first studies to provide a broad perspective on the relationship between social network use and life satisfaction.

Basic science, sometimes called “curiosity-driven research” at the National Science Foundation and other places, starts with a question that somehow stays in the mind, nagging for an answer. Such questions really are “puzzles”; they arise in an intellectual field or context, asking someone to fit pieces to an improving but incomplete picture of the social world. What makes a worthwhile puzzle is a missing part in understanding the picture, or a new piece of knowledge that does not seem to fit among other parts. Sometimes creative theorists can imagine a solution to one of the holes in the puzzle. If they are also empirical scientists, they devise ways to get evidence bearing on their ideas, and some of those ideas survive to give more complete and detailed pictures of the world. This chapter is the story of puzzles and provisional solutions to them, developed by dozens of men and women investigating status processes and status structures, using a coherent perspective, for over half a century.¹

This chapter focuses on visualization. Seeing the humanities differently is one of the amazing benefits of working with tools mentioned within this category. Whether it be more traditional visualizations like images or video or that which is considered a bit more advanced like augmented or virtual reality, the enhanced perspective gained through the use of these tools offers digital humanities scholars unprecedented disciplinary perspectives while helping to shape new research areas, questions, and understanding of humanity and culture. In addition to visualization and issues related to it, this chapter also examines gaming and how games and play are impacting the digital humanities in exciting ways.

The Spread of Status Value theory describes how new diffuse status characteristics can arise out of the association of initially non-valued characteristics to existing status characteristics that are already well-established in a society. Our objective is to extend this theory so that it describes how still other status elements, which have become of interest to researchers such as “status objects” (Thye, 2000) and “valued roles” (Fişek, Berger, & Norman, 1995), can also be socially created.

Our approach involves reviewing research that is relevant to the Spread of Status Value theory, and in introducing concepts and assumptions that are applicable to status objects and valued roles.

Our major results are an elaborated theory that describes the construction of status objects and valued roles, a graphic representation of one set of conditions in which this creation process is predicted to occur, and a design for a further empirical test of the Spread of Status Value theory. This extension has social implications. It opens up the possibility of creating social interventions that involve status objects and valued roles to ameliorate dysfunctional social situations.

Our elaborated theory enables us to understand for the first time how different types of status valued elements can, under appropriate conditions, be socially created or socially modified as a result of the operation of what are fundamentally similar processes.

This chapter explores the different ways we share our research. The ways in which we are productive, again, help shape the tools in which productivity occurs. Archiving, storing, and sharing are crucial within the field of digital humanities and offer interesting perspectives on how we as humans share information with one another. The focus in this chapter is also on specific tools like timelines, e-portfolios, and the new generation of presentation applications.