Tobacco is a significant product providing considerable economic benefits to countries worldwide, while its increased consumption causes health and socio-economic losses for smokers and non-smokers. This paper constructs a decomposition system of tobacco taxation: the population aging factor is included in the influencing factors of personal tax, and personal tax revenue is regarded as the product of tax structure, macro tax burden, regional economy, reciprocal aging, and the elderly population. This article conducts an empirical study on the relationship between taxation and economic growth. The estimated coefficients of business tax and corporate income tax are significant at the significance level of 0.1, with a consumption tax and time-variable coefficients reporting a 0.02 level of significance. The T statistic value and the explanatory degree of the variables involved in the model to the explained variables are also very high, reaching more than 95%. We find that increasing the macro tax burden negatively impacts economic growth. Therefore, the study suggests that for fostering the industry’s economic growth, the country needs to ensure the optimal macro tax burden of 17.5%, with different types of taxes influencing economic growth. Personal tax reform should pay attention to the phenomenon of aging, adjust the tax structure to increase personal tax income, provide policy support and guarantee for the elderly labor force, and encourage the re-employment of silver-haired people to alleviate the adverse impact of aging on taxation. Tobacco is a particular product. Compared with ordinary commodities, because its ingredients contain nicotine, smokers are easily addicted and become dependent on tobacco, resulting in lower elasticity of demand for tobacco products. In addition, its consumption behavior also has incomplete information, which will cause negative externalities and pathogenicity in the consumption process. Compared with drugs, tobacco is addictive and causes less health damage, and the symptoms after addiction are controllable. Therefore, all countries have adopted an attitude of “restricting tobacco use.” This has led to such a result: on the one hand, tobacco production can bring huge economic benefits to society and the government; on the other hand, tobacco consumption will lead to immeasurable socio-economic loss.In today’s modern era, several global industries have competed in the international market , with thIn recent years, ensuring stakeholder interest has become essential for economic progression . TherefoUnder the background that tobacco consumption has become a huge threat to global health, raising tobacco excise tax has been proven by international practice as the most effective and cost-effective tobacco control method. This is because, compared with other tobacco control measures, taxation has a wider scope and raises huge financial revenue for the government while effectively controlling tobacco.With the in-depth research of domestic and foreign experts and scholars on tobacco consumption, policy suggestions for the reform of tobacco tax are also constantly put forward. Through induction and sorting, it is found that scholars mostly focus on empirical analysis, studying the elasticity of consumer demand for tobacco, the impact of tobacco tax increases on tobacco consumption, and estimating the direct and indirect costs caused by smoking—however, few studies on the overall system design of tobacco excise tax.Therefore, based on previous scholars’ research, this paper intends to study the specific design of each tax system element of tobacco consumption tax from the perspective of tax system optimization through the combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods, inductive analysis, and comparative analysis. From the perspective of theoretical construction, this paper has certain theoretical significance for making up for the relevant deficiencies and improving the entire taxation theoretical system.The mechanism of the optimization of the tobacco consumption tax system is mainly carried out from two perspectives: how to achieve the tobacco control target of the tobacco consumption tax and how the tax system elements are designed to achieve the tobacco control target. The analysis of the former’s taxation goal provides an optimization direction for the design of tax system elements. In contrast, the latter’s discussion guarantees the realization of the former’s taxation goal. At the national level, we decompose the personal income tax income of the total tobacco company employees. The results of the LMDI decomposition show that the aging effect has an eroding effect on the individual tax income, which seriously hinders the growth and development of the individual tax income and often causes the individual tax income. The negative growth of the company partially offsets the driving effect of other effects on personal tax revenue. Although there are differences in the contribution rate of the various decomposition effects between regions to the total effect, economic effects are always the main reason for the growth of individual taxes in each region.Tax structure and the macro tax burden also determine how individual tax revenues grow. There is a significant gap between China’s tax structure, macro tax burden, and international levels. Policymakers should also focus on these two factors when making decisions on individual tax reform. The number of elderly practitioners continues to increase, and the expansion of the elderly population has also contributed to the increase in personal tax revenue. Perhaps policy support in elderly employment can also alleviate the tax pressure caused by aging. We analyze and study the impact of Chinese taxation on economic growth by empirically testing the impact of different taxes or tax types on economic growth. Value-added tax, consumption tax, and personal income tax for tobacco company employees have a negative impact on China’s per capita GDP; business tax and corporate income tax have a positive impact on China’s per capita GDP.The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section “Study Background” discusses the research background. Section “Mechanism Analysis of Optimization of Tobacco Consumption Tax System” analyzes the mechanism of tobacco excise tax optimization. Section “Lmdi Decomposition of Personal Income Tax for Tobacco Company Employees With the Introduction of Population Aging Factors” analyzes the personal income tax of tobacco company employees by introducing population aging factors. Section “Empirical Test of the Impact of Tobacco Tax Structure on Economic Growth” empirically examines the impact of tobacco tax structure on economic growth, with Section “Conclusion” concluding the research findings by proposing significant implications for future researchers.Regarding the impact of taxation levels on economic growth, foreign scholars have conducted a lot of research through theoretical derivation and empirical analysis . The KeyDomestic research on the impact of taxation levels on economic growth models has various forms, which is worth learning. Still, different conclusions have reduced the reference value of these academic papers. The reason may be the choice of models, data processing, or professional restrictions. First of all, the choice of data, most of the literature adopts local taxation data when studying the provincial taxation panel. However, since the taxation system reform, the proportion of local taxes is about 40%, which does not reflect the true taxation level. Secondly, there is an inherent correlation between taxation and economic growth and should be considered comprehensively. Finally, the reform of the tax system will affect the changes in the proportion of various taxes in the total tax level, which in turn affects the level of taxation and economic growth, and changes in the tax system structure will also have an impact on the level of taxation .Relevant scholars have calculated through welfare effects and have given that the welfare harm caused by the business tax is far greater than the harm caused by value-added tax, but also pointed out that small and micro enterprises should be exempted from value-added tax. They also advocated the “deduction of value-added tax in the service industry” . In addiFrom the perspective of tax burden shifting and ultimate fate, the research results of related scholars pointed out that tobacco consumption accounts for a relatively high proportion of the total consumption of low-income people, which is common in all countries in the world. If the tobacco consumption tax is increased, the burden of the tobacco consumption tax will be increased. Retirement will also increase, which is a departure from the principle of tax fairness. Researchers believe that although tobacco consumption is harmful to physical and mental health, tobacco products are addictive, and their price elasticity is small. The increase in tax burden can be effectively transferred to consumers, thus playing a role in restraining tobacco consumption .China’s cigarette price system includes four major parts: ex-factory price, transfer price , wholesale price, and retail price. The transfer price is the tax base of the China Tobacco Consumption Tax. It refers to the cigarette transaction price signed between the cigarette manufacturer and the purchaser in the production process. This price is the basis of the ex-factory price, determined by the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration and the tax Jointly decided by the agencies. The wholesale price is the price formed after adding a specific adjustment gross profit rate  based on the allocation price. Finally, the retail price of cigarettes is based on the wholesale price plus the prescribed gross margin . The State Tobacco Monopoly Administration regulates the adjusted gross margin and the gross margin.Because the high-income group and the group with high tobacco addiction have less elastic demand for tobacco, the affordability of tobacco is higher, or the consumption habits are relatively stable, the product substitution caused by the increase of tobacco consumption tax is not high, and the consumption volume has remained stable. Even for high-income earners, due to the basic national conditions of China’s social “respect for tobacco” and “send tobacco,” the increase in tobacco prices may also promote their purchase of high-end tobacco. On the other hand, for low-income earners and groups with small addictions, although tobacco consumption has decreased, the unit price increase brought about by tax increases can make up for the fiscal revenue loss caused by the decrease in tobacco sales.As shown in Over the years, China has potentially focused on increasing its production level  rather tThe collection of cigarette excise tax includes three links, namely, production, wholesale, and retail. Since China implements a tobacco monopoly system, this article only demonstrates the advantages and disadvantages of the three links in this context. Before comparing the various collection links, we must understand the specific operation of the tobacco industry. The process of the tobacco industry is shown in As far as the production link is concerned, the current tobacco consumption tax in most countries globally is levied in this link, and China initially implemented a single levy on the production link. This is because most tobacco production companies are general taxpayers, and tax authorities can control them through a series of methods such as input tax, output tax, and equipment capacity. Hence, it is easy to obtain relevant tax data. Tobacco companies have strong control and can obtain higher tax revenues at extremely low taxation costs; taxation at the source is more efficient.However, behind the theory of efficient collection of production links, there is a problem of local protectionism in collecting tobacco taxes in practice. Although the consumption tax belongs to the central government’s fiscal revenue and will eventually be paid to the state, because the consumption tax is levied at the place of production, the urban maintenance and construction tax and education surcharge calculated with the consumption tax as the tax base belongs to the local tax revenue. In addition, according to the tax refund calculation formula determined by the tax-sharing system, the huge tobacco consumption tax levied at the production area constitutes one of the bases of the central tax refund. Therefore, before these two “preferential policies,” on the one hand, local governments that mainly produce cigarettes will increase measures to encourage and protect the development of local cigarette manufacturers from obtaining high fiscal revenue. When producing cigarettes, local governments will choose to deny them access to the local market for fiscal revenue, which will result in market separation and form a local monopoly in cigarette production.In summary, levying a cigarette excise tax only in the production process runs counter to the country’s total tobacco production capacity restriction goal and restricts healthy competition in the cigarette market. This situation is particularly prominent in provinces that rely heavily on tobacco tax revenue. The optimization framework diagram of the tobacco consumption tax system is shown in i is the total population of the region; OP is the size of the elderly, OPi is the size of the elderly population in area i, the personal income tax income of Chinese tobacco company employees can be expressed as:To reasonably divide and decompose the personal income tax of tobacco company employees, assume that the personal income tax of the total tobacco company employees in the region comes from the four regions of East, Central, West, and Northeast. Let PIT be the personal income tax of tobacco company employees; PITi is the individual tobacco company employees in the i region. T is the total tax revenue of the region, Ti is the total tax revenue of the i region; Y is the total value-added, Yi is the total value added of the i region; TP is the total population of the region, TPi is the tax structure of region i, Mi is the macro tax burden of region i, Yi is the regional economy of region i, and Ai is the regional aging factor: the ratio of the total population to the elderly population can be regarded as the reciprocal of aging. Oi is the size of the elderly population in area i. Therefore, the total personal income tax of employees of tobacco companies in the country can be regarded as a chain index of tax structure, macro tax burden, regional economy, aging factors, and the size of the aging population. To measure the effectiveness of the above factors on the changes in the total personal income tax of the employees of the tobacco companies in the region, this paper uses the LMDI decomposition method to study the changes in the individual tax in each region. It examines the regional individual tax income changes from the two aspects of the development speed and growth of the individual tax. The incremental decomposition of personal income tax income of tobacco company employees can be expressed as:Among them, SThe decomposition effects are, respectively, expressed as:The additive decomposition component of each factor means that other factors remain unchanged, only the incremental change in the total personal tax income caused by the change of the factor. The multiplicative decomposition formula of individual income tax income of tobacco company employees is as follows:Regional macroeconomic conditions and development levels are different. How will the personal income tax income of employees of tobacco companies in China change? When other factors are fixed, what impact does the national tax structure, macro tax burden, regional economy, aging, and the size of the elderly population have on personal tax revenue? This article will discuss this issue in detail. The individual income tax of employees of tobacco companies across the country can be regarded as a summary of individual tax income at the regional level.Analyzing The scale effect of the elderly population has also actively promoted the growth of individual tax income. From 2008 to 2020, China’s elderly population has increased by 37 million, and the population effect has led to an increase of 119.61 billion yuan in individual tax income. The reason may be due to the rich human resources of the elderly in China. According to the “Survey Report on the Living Conditions of the Elderly in Urban and Rural Areas in China,” the number of working elderlies in China has increased rapidly since 1990. In 1995, the number of working people over 60 in China was 60.648 million. In 2019, this indicator increased to 92.353 million. In the same year, the working population aged 65 and above also increased by 13.954 million, an increase of 114% during the period.Between 2008 and 2020, the ratio of China’s total population to the elderly declined, from 11.62 to 9.15, a decrease of 2.46, and the aging degree increased by 2.26% compared to 2008, which significantly hindered the growth of individual tax income. This reduced personal tax revenue by 55.55 billion yuan. Changes in the reciprocal of aging will bring about changes in tax revenue in the same direction. For the sake of brevity, the following are collectively referred to as aging effects.Analyzing the decomposition results of individual tax revenue in each year shows that changes in the tax structure, macro tax burden, regional economy, and the size of the elderly population will bring changes in the same direction of tax revenue, and changes in the aging effect will change in the opposite direction of tax revenue. Taking the data from 2008 to 2011 as an example, China’s tax structure has been reduced year by year, and the ratio of individual tax revenue to total tax revenue has decreased year by year. This change has caused a negative growth in individual tax revenue. The change in tax structure in 2011 has reduced individual tax revenue by 14.16 billion yuan. In the same year, the macro tax burden increased by 1.87% compared with the previous year, which led to an increase of 34.39 billion yuan in personal tax revenue. The economic effect also contributed to an increase of 29.97 billion yuan in personal tax revenue. In the same year, the degree of aging increased compared with the previous year. The increase from 9.32 to 9.49% caused a decrease of 161 million yuan in personal tax revenue. Data from other years can also support this conclusion. The LMDI decomposition of the development speed of national personal tax revenue is shown in Analyzing The decomposition of each year also shows that China’s tax structure and macro tax burden fluctuate year by year, and there is no stable trend. The two major fiscal effects on the promotion or suppression of individual tax revenue cannot be generalized. Their role depends on these two influencing factors. China’s economic growth is in good shape, and the economic effects continue to promote the growth of personal tax revenue. In 2014, the growth rate of personal tax revenue reached 9.5%, and the growth rate of personal tax revenue caused by the decline in the size of the elderly population was −8.2%. The deepening of the aging degree inhibits the growth and development of personal tax income. The annual decomposition results show that the degree of aging will cause a negative growth rate of personal tax income.This article will use the relevant data of a particular year as the analysis sample to estimate the above model. Because observing the macro tax rate during this period, it can be found that the tax rate is basically above 30%, with an average of about 37%. The economic system has undergone tremendous changes, and the tax system has also undergone new changes. Therefore, the macro tax rate has been directly reduced to about 20%. With the implementation of the tax-sharing system, the tax system has gradually improved and entered a stable stage. Therefore, this paper will use the data since the tax-sharing system as a sample for statistical analysis, which can better reflect the impact of taxation on economic growth.This article will select five major taxes, namely value-added tax, business tax, corporate income tax, personal income tax for tobacco company employees, and consumption tax as explanatory variables. The control variable is set as China’s total investment. Generally speaking, a country’s GDP growth is driven by the troika of consumption, investment, and import and export. According to China’s current situation, imports and export are relatively small, and the consumption capacity needs to be improved. Investment is mainly used to drive GDP growth. And investment can be divided into inventory investment and social fixed asset investment. Since the investment in fixed assets of the whole society is the most favorable means of stimulating China’s economic growth, we will use the fixed asset investment data to replace the investment here. The explained variable is the per capita GDP value. In addition to the introduced control variable of total investment, we will introduce time t because the data designed by our model are all-time series, and we must consider the impact of time on the results. To eliminate the price impact, all explanatory variables, explained variables, and control variables used here will be calculated using actual price data, the real GDP per capita after the price factor is proposed. Finally, we will do a natural logarithm of all variables to prevent the occurrence of heteroscedasticity. Therefore, we set the specific regression model equation as follows:t is the time series, and δ is the white noise. On the one hand, China’s tax system structure has gradually stabilized after the tax-sharing system in 2003. On the other hand, to maintain consistency with the analysis data in the previous section, we will still select relevant data from 2003 to 2020 as the analysis object. The normalized 2003–2020 data sample is shown in Where lnrjgdp is the logarithm of China’s per capita GDP, lnzzs, lnyys, lnxfs, lnqysds, and lngrsdy are the logarithms of China’s value-added tax, business tax, consumption tax, corporate income tax, and personal income tax for tobacco company employees. Before performing the unit root test, it is necessary to determine the form of the variable. Usually, it is necessary to determine which form the variable belongs to by drawing the curve graph of the sequence. If the graph of a variable appears to fluctuate with a zero value, then the test type for this variable can be determined to have no intercept term and no time trend. A variable can be defined as having an intercept term if the variable’s graph appears to fluctuate from zero without a clear time trend. If the variable graph shows a clear trend in one direction over time, then the variable can be identified as a test type containing both an intercept term and a time trend term.Since the sample data we used here is still a time series, we must first perform unit root verification on all variables in the model before estimating the model to prevent the occurrence of spurious regression. Here we still choose to use the ADF method to carry out unit root tests. Using EVIEWS6.0 software, the ADF unit root stationarity verification results of all variables of the model are shown in From the test results in The residual of the model is a stationary series, indicating that there is indeed a certain cointegration relationship between these unstable variables. According to the T statistic value of each variable, it can be seen that in the coefficients of the entire estimation equation, the estimated coefficient of the variable of fixed asset investment in the whole society is not significant, and the estimated coefficients of business tax and corporate income tax are both significant at the significance level of 0.1. The estimated coefficients of value-added tax and employee personal income tax of tobacco companies are significant at the significance level of 0.05. The coefficients of the constant term, consumption tax, and time-variable are all significant at the significance level of 0.02. These insignificant and non-significant variables may be caused by too many variables in the model design and insufficient sample data length. However, in general, the regression results of the model are still more significant. The T statistic value is very high, and the explanatory degree of the variables involved in the model is also very high, reaching more than 95%. Therefore, the overall fit of this regression equation is still very good.For enterprises with relatively weak competitiveness, taxation brings more pressure to them, which will affect the development of small and medium-sized enterprises; at the same time, the proportion of direct taxes mainly based on personal income tax and property tax is too small, which is not conducive to regulating our country. Over the last few years, the study shows that fewer taxes have increased in China, substantially affecting its economic growth . China’sAnd how to adjust the proportion of direct tax and indirect tax, on the one hand, we can increase the tax types of the income tax system by levying some new taxes such as social security tax, inheritance tax, gift tax, etc.; on the other hand, we must look at the solution to the problem from an overall perspective, that is, to achieve through increments, to convert a part of my country’s non-tax government revenue into direct tax in a certain way. Those who are divided equally can better contribute to economic growth.Undoubtedly, tobacco prices and consumers’ earnings are crucial in driving tobacco consumption. The high affordability of tobacco products makes the consumers buy more products, thus increasing its market demand . In partThis paper constructs a composite index of individual income tax for tobacco company employees through the reasonable division of individual tax income. It uses the LMDI decomposition method to decompose the incremental decomposition and development speed decomposition of individual tax income from the national and regional levels. Whether it is the decomposition of the eastern, central, western, and northeastern regions, or the decomposition results from the country’s overall level, they all indicate that the aging effect is the main reason for hindering tax revenue. The decomposition results are specifically reflected in the fact that the aging of each region or country is increasing, the amount of change in tax revenue caused by aging is negative, the development speed indicator is less than 1, and a negative growth rate has occurred. The changes in tax structure and macro tax burden during the sample observation period do not have a definite trend but fluctuate up and down. The fluctuation of these two effects will cause changes in the same direction as the individual tax revenue. The specific manifestations are tax structure and macro tax.Negative effects have a two-way effect on changes in personal tax revenue. The growth of tax structure and the macro tax burden will drive the growth of personal tax revenue, and the reduction of tax structure and the macro tax burden will hinder the growth of personal tax revenue. Through empirical analysis of the impact of different taxes on economic growth, we find that value-added tax, consumption tax, and personal income tax of tobacco company employees have a negative impact on China’s per capita GDP. It has a restraining effect on economic growth, with business tax and corporate income tax impacting China’s per capita GDP. Indeed, it is positive, which is conducive to China’s economic growth. The effect of value-added tax on economic growth is inseparable from the narrow scope of China’s value-added tax collection. The collection of corporate income tax can promote economic growth. Certain aspects are also affected by China’s actual economic conditions. The existence of tax collection methods, tax rates, and tax evasion does not fully reflect the original intention of narrowing the income gap. Therefore, it has a negative impact on China’s economic growth.This paper mainly studies the impact of taxation on economic growth from the two aspects of macro tax burden and tax structure. It adopts medium-caliber macro tax burden data in the aspect of the macro tax burden. At the same time, the price level of GDP, the added value of per capita GDP, and time are used as control variables for analysis. In terms of tax structure, value-added tax, business tax, consumption tax, corporate income tax, and personal income tax are used as explanatory variables, and the total investment in fixed assets and time series of the whole society are used as control variables to analyze and study the impact of different taxes on economic growth. However, as far as the impact of taxation on economic growth is concerned, further research can be done from the regional composition of taxation amount to find out the different effects of taxation on economic growth in different regions, and then formulate different policies according to the impact of different regions. Therefore, this will also be the direction of further research in this paper in the future.https://data.cnki.net/.Publicly available datasets were analyzed in this study. The data is publicly available on China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI). The author confirms being the sole contributor of this work and has approved it for publication.The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.


Personal competition among colleagues and co-workers has been observed in order to prove their professional superiority over others. Such behaviors have grave consequences on the overall team performance. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of personal competition on team performance incorporating the mediating role of the playing dumb behavior of knowledge hiding. The study has further checked the moderating effect of task interdependence on the relationship between personal competition and playing dumb. Data for the present study had been collected through questionnaires from the sports players actively associated with games through their educational institutes in China. The sample size of the study was 339, selected on the basis of convenience sampling. Smart PLS had been employed to analyze the data through structural equation modeling (SEM). The results of the study showed a strong impact of personal competition on team performance and the playing dumb variable. Furthermore, playing dumb has been found to have a strong mediating impact on team performance. The study has theoretically contributed to the literature of competition and performance by investigating the mediating role of playing dumb. The study also offers certain practical implications to the managers of the corporate world to devise such human resource policies that take appraisals from the colleagues so as to rectify the negative workplace behaviors and could be worked out accordingly. Growing international competition, as well as the demand for different talents, knowledge, and creativity fueled the growth of collaborative work structured in teams as basic organizational building blocks that need faster and more flexible reactions. Among the most prevalent developments in complicated and dynamic work settings is the implementation and utilization of various types of teams . ComplexPerformance is characterized as a sequence of activities that produce a scale for achieving corporate goals . StudiesIn sports, the contrast between the team and individual players is crucial. Since over seven decades of research, very little is understood regarding inter-personal distinctions among individuals and team athletes. Researchers found that team players are more extroverted and less conscientious than solo athletes in their assessment of the relationship between sports and personality , 2013. ICompetition or adverse dependency among sportsmen or teams is, in reality, a key feature of the social environment of professional team sports. Competing individuals seldom cooperate with one another during a competitive circumstance since doing so would jeopardize their chances of success. Pure competition, on the other hand, is uncommon in real-life social situations . Sports Even with all these parallels among team and individual sports mentioned previously, team sports are intrinsically more competitive. On the one extreme, team players are always competing against their colleagues . Officials or coaches also could try to encourage such intra-team games in the hopes of improving their athletes’ performance. Team players must work together with their colleagues throughout the team performance to complete the objective, progress as a team, and succeed against the other squads. Cooperation in this context entails not just working toward a common objective, but also demonstrating behavioral interdependence by demonstrating conduct that helps other athletes do better . IndividIndividual sports, frequently demand athletes to surpass others during practice or competitions. Individual results are accumulated to a team performance in baton contests , but no collaborative activity inside the team is necessary throughout the race . CompetiA lot of research has been conducted on knowledge sharing perspectives in positive team performances and organizational success in the past. Knowledge hiding behaviors are relatively new entrants in this setup of organizations. This kind of relationship hinted about exploring the specific type of knowledge hiding, i.e., playing dumb in the context of sports psychology while evaluating the role of personal competition on team performance. So, this gap provided the basis for modeling the current research. In this context, the mediation of the playing dumb perspective of knowledge hiding behavior was not studied before. So, playing dumb was conceptualized as a mediator between personal competition and team performance. Another gap was found in this research that task interdependence was utilized as a moderator between knowledge hiding and team creativity while moderation between personal competition and knowledge hiding was not explored. This also hinted toward its possible moderating effect between personal competition and the mediator of our research. Several types of research focused on the competitive aspect of sportsmen toward team performance such as These gaps in the previous research posed some questions such as “does personal competition have any role on the performance of the team?” If there is any impact of personal competition among the sportsmen or teammates then what factors could regulate or mediate the function of such a relationship? As playing dumb is a kind of knowledge hiding, and knowledge hiding hinders team performance, how could playing dumb affect the relationship between personal competition and team performance? Another question was raised that how task interdependence could regulate the relationship of personal competition with mediating playing dumb? To answer these questions, this research was designed with several objectives such as exploring the relationship of personal competition with team performance, addressing the mediating role of playing dumb between personal competition and team performance, and evaluating the moderating mediated impact of task interdependence on knowledge hiding leading to team performance.Social comparison theory is one of the more well-known viewpoints on the competitiveness/situation relationship. Unlike social interdependence theory, when rivalry is fundamentally established, social comparison theory competition is driven by either a person’s need for honest self-evaluations about personal talents in an attempt to discover areas for improvement . CompetiMoreover, while the other will have the same qualities, level of skill, and characteristics as the other, such as sexual identity, ethnicity, nationality, and economic status, the contrast is very striking . The comvia many activities or procedures, including goal formation, externally and internally orientation, preparation, implementation, and assessment. Work planning, cooperation in tasks , work evaluation   , and adasurance) .Despite the fact that Rousseau’s model is one of the most effective measures of generic collaboration, in-depth specification is required to adapt it to various real-world settings . The forCompetitiveness, also known as innate competition or deliberate competitiveness, is an individual difference that results in a propensity for competition. Competition may be beneficial, defined by increased drive and involvement, or harmful, characterized by suspicion and intense negative feelings, dependent on how it develops . The twoPersonal development competitiveness is the final of the three orientations, and it views competition as a type of personal growth and development, self-discovery, and consciousness. Personal competition, on the other hand, is a healthy sort of individual competitive behavior in which participants focus on “the enjoyment and mastery of the work” rather than on succeeding. A personal competition exhibits a high degree of self, success, connection, compassion for others’ well-being, and forgiveness, as well as lower levels has dominant behaviors, violence, and psychopathy. Unlike unhealthy kinds of competition, this attitude represents a healthy and constructive sort of competition . Though Collaborative competitiveness emerges out of a bottom-up emergent process in which lower-level constructs converge through social contact, trade, and combinations to generate a higher-level emerging attribute of the team, to borrow the terminology from 1H. Personal competition has an effect on team performance.According to Team performance is determined by the amount and quality of work performed by a team and is the result of all team members’ combined efforts. Team members should be able to enable team processes such as coordination and communication in order to guide, coordinate, and evaluate teamwork to improve team performance. Teamwork procedures may be harmed if team members intentionally hide knowledge from their coworkers, which may result in poor team performance. Knowledge concealment may cause a change in attention from a team to a more narrow and personal focus, obstructing staff coordination and communication and lowering team performance . To over2H. Personal competition has an effect on playing dumb perspective of knowledge hiding.3H. Playing dumb has an effect on team performance.Certain studies have also evaluated the mediating role of playing dumb in various perspectives, i.e., interpersonal conflict and psychological strain , territo4H. Playing dumb mediates the relationship between personal competition and team performance.Interdependence between tasks promotes communication and collaboration, as well as mutual adaptation between acquirers and targets. In the literature on knowledge management, such a task feature has been recognized as a contextual moderator. When tasks are interdependent from other team members, the relationship between personal competition and knowledge hiding should be less negative . On the The more interconnected the duties, on the other hand, the less probable it is that any single person will possess all of the necessary expertise. Information concealing hinders members of the team from gathering existing expertise from people with the necessary information for increasing intellectual capital for interdependent tasks. Even if one coworker hides information under a high level of task interdependence, the rules of reciprocity and the achievement of shared objectives should motivate his or her colleagues to spread information regardless, resulting in team knowledge transfer . As a re5H. Task interdependence moderates the relationship between personal competition and playing dumb.A following conceptual model  has beenThe present study follows a post-positivist deductive method to check the hypothesis of the study which implies the quantitative research design for the study. A total of five hypotheses have been developed in the present study to check the effect of the independent variable  on the dependent variable (team performance). Moreover, the mediating role of the playing dumb variable has been deployed along with the moderation of task interdependence. A survey method using the questionnaire has been used in this study. The questionnaire survey was administered by the authors to avoid any misunderstanding by the respondents; however, the rationality of the data has been made sure by letting the respondents fill the questionnaires without any external pressure. The unit of analysis of the study is individual, i.e., sportsmen who were taken as the population of the study who are involved in sports activities at their school/institute level or play under local sports bodies in China. The data had been collected from the respondents on the basis of convenience sampling as it is cost-effective and data is readily obtained . The samt-statistics, sample means, and p-values.The structural equation model for the current study had been examined using the software Smart PLS 3.3.3 There are several reasons for using this software. First of all this software helps in examining small data and developing the path models quickly . Using SThe questionnaire used in this study had been designed on a 5-point Likert scale, consisting of the variables of the study, i.e., personal competition, playing dumb, team performance, and task interdependence. The details for each variable adaptation have been given along with their alpha reliabilities obtained. The minimum threshold mentioned in the literature is 0.7 . For theThe scale used for the variable personal competition had been adapted from The scale used for the variable playing dumb had been adapted from The scale used for the variable team performance had been adapted from The scale used for the variable task interdependence had been adapted from Results for the demographic profile showed interesting results. The gender-wise participation in the survey was found almost the same. A total of 52% of the participants were male while 48% of the participants were females. The highest number of respondents was found to be between the ages of 15–20, followed by the age category of 21–25 and then the age category 26–30. The age category up to 30 years had been included because usually young adults actively participate in sports activities . The eduvia total variance explained . The third hypothesis regarding the effect of playing dumb on team performance has also been found significant at p < 0.05, and t-value more than 1.96 (In ct sizes . The innhan 1.96 .p < 0.05 with t-statistic > 1.96 and hence, the H4 has been accepted. The results for indirect effects have been reported in The indirect effect of personal competition on team performance has been found significant. The fourth hypothesis of the study indicating the mediating role of playing dumb between personal competition and team performance has been found significant at 5.The present study has checked the moderating effect of task interdependence on the relationship between personal competition and playing dumb. However, the results could not support the fifth hypothesis of the study thus rejecting HThis research focused the competitiveness in terms of personal competition and its impact on team performance. The mediating effects of playing dumb were also evaluated in this. The contingent role of task interdependence among personal competition and playing dumb were also evaluated in the research which contributed to some promising and significant results indicating the fruitfulness of the subject. Personal competition exhibits a high degree of self, success, connection, compassion for others’ well-being, and forgiveness, as well as lower levels of dominant behaviors, violence, and psychopathy. Unlike unhealthy kinds of competition, this attitude represents a healthy and constructive sort of competition . Though Once the negative behavior develops due to personal competition, it could lead to disturbed team performance. Our results indicated the same in which playing dumb had an impact on team performance. Similar kind of results was also obtained in some of the previous studies . We alsoThere are a few implications of the study that can help real-world personnel in positively modifying their behavior. First of all, it is the responsibility of the mentor, coach, instructor, or manager to make an atmosphere of healthy competition that does not let the players involved in the playing dumb role of knowledge hiding because it consequently affects the team performance. To improve the team performance, the management must make sure the positive reinforcement of the behaviors thus avoiding the feeling of competition. The management should make the independent groups and teams of the employees/players and hold the performance-based competitions so they would not hide anything from each other thus, minimizing the competition at the personal level.Despite contribution to the theory of competition and performance, the present study has some limitations. First of all, the population this study has taken is the sports players because they are found to have been involved in competition at a personal level relatively more . TherefoPersonal competition has been prevailing among colleagues and co-workers ever since to prove better at work than others. Such behaviors have been found to have serious consequences on the overall team performance. In order to examine the impact of personal competition on its related consequent factors, this study has been conducted. This study has examined the effect of personal competition on playing dumb and the team performance among the sports-related personnel in China. The results of the study found that the impact of personal competition is significant on team performance and the playing dumb behavior of knowledge hiding from the teammates. Further, the results showed a significant mediating role of playing dumb between personal competition and team performance. However, the moderating effect of task interdependence between the relationship of personal competition and team performance has not been found to have any impactful contribution toward it. However, the study has certain implications for the real-world corporate sector.The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the Shandong College of Arts, China. The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study. The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.JL conceived and designed the concept, collected the data, wrote the manuscript, and read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.


In recent years and due to advanced fabrication techniques of composites, many of these functional materials have been brought to the forefront with more benefits. Amongst composites, special attention has been paid to metal matrix composites (MMCs). Reinforced aluminum MMCs with nanoparticles are among the new MMCs with a wide range of industry applications. The combination of aluminum as a soft, lightweight, and low-strength material with silicon carbide (SiC), bismuth (Bi), and tin (Sn) particles, which are hard and high-strength materials, may lead to the generation of high-strength and lightweight material, which can be classified as difficult to cut material. According to literature, limited studies have been reported on the effects of various reinforcing elements on the machinability of Al-MMC, in principle tool wear morphology and size and surface quality. According to statistical analysis, the effect of cutting parameters and reinforcing particles on the surface quality attributes is not statistically significant. In contrast, the effect of cutting parameters and reinforcing particles on the tool flank wear is significant and reliable. In addition, it is observed that the reinforcing particles and cutting speed have the most significant effects, and the lubrication mode has a minor impact on the tool flank wear. In recent years, the automobile and aerospace industries have used particulate reinforced aluminum metal matrix composites (MMCs) because of their low specific weight, high wear resistance, low thermal expansion, and improved mechanical properties ,2,3. IndAdditionally, those work parts with Bi explored the lowest cutting force and better surface roughness in Al-11Si-2Cu cast alloy as compared to those with Sb and Sr . In thisThe blocks of composite materials tested  were fabUpon completing Al520 + 10% SiC casting process, a section of the work part was separated as a sample to ensure the correct distribution of particles and quality production of the fabricated work part. It was polished and prepared for characterization using SEM. As a result, it can be seen that except for a few points where these particles are stuck together and prevention is almost impossible, the uniform homogeneity was observed through the work part. The quantometry examination of the tested part was conducted at the temperature: 25 °C and the humidity: 41%. The cutting parameters used in this work are presented in The cutting operations were performed on a 3-axis CNC machine tool  under different lubrication conditions, including dry and wet . Iscar cAfter completing the milling tests, the flank wear rate and morphology and the Ra readings were evaluated under different cutting conditions. Abrasion is the dominant wear mechanism due to the interaction between SiC particles in the work part and the insert surface. According to Manna et al., the leading cause of flank wear in machining MMCs is the collision of SiC particles with the surface of the carbide tool . TherefoThe milling tests were performed under the cutting conditions presented in According to the tested regions , the sur2 = 54.98% states that the effect of cutting parameters on Ra in Al520 is not statistically significant. In other words, the effects of cutting parameters such as cutting speed, feed rate, and depth of cut are insignificant. Furthermore, as shown in Based on The 2D contour plots of Rz and Ra against cutting speed and feed rate per tooth are shown in Based on the observations made in Similar to According to Similar to Based on Irrespective of the material used, it can be stated that no mathematical formulation can be formulated between both surface roughness responses and cutting parameters  due to iFinally, it can be stated that despite the material tested, the effects of reinforcing particles on both Ra and Rz are not statistically significant. Knowing that fabricated MMCs have heterogeneous distribution inside the material, the impact of the tooltip during machining such materials causes mechanical damage, abrasion, and high surface roughness. Furthermore, except for minor cases, in general, due to the collision of SiC with the tip of the cutting tool, rapid tool wear or breakage is expected. Consequently, more extensive chip formation, friction, and forces are expected. As a result, deteriorated surface quality is expected. One solution to overcome this problem is to use appropriate tool path strategies, adequate cutting parameters, suitable cutting tools, and tool geometry.Furthermore, additional tests are still needed to confirm these statements due to uncontrolled and unpredicted collision between the tooltip and reinforcing particles which may tend to hasten tool wear and, in some cases, tool breakage. Moreover, according to the statistical studies performed on each material and examining the effect of different materials and cutting parameters on the surface quality, it can be stated that the effect of cutting parameters on Ra and Rz is statistically insensitive in all studied conditions and is uncontrollable . Therefo2 = 98.52%) states that the variation of cutting parameters can control the tool flank wear when machining Al520. The cutting speed and lubrication have the most effects on the tool flank wear. In addition, higher tool flank wear was observed under dry mode. Thus, in general, it can be stated that a mathematical relationship can be formulated between tool flank wear and cutting parameters. However, based on the contour plot of tool flank wear in To determine the cutting tool life and observe the overview of the tool flank wear profile, the amount of tool flank wear should be monitored and measured. For this purpose, the flank side of the cutting tool was examined when various levels of cutting parameters were used. As can be seen in 2 = 94.77%). Furthermore, it is well known that a higher level of cutting speed may tend to increase tool flank wear. However, based on the tool flank wear chart in According to Based on the tool flank wear chart in Based on the tool flank wear chart in 2) associated with each material indicates that the tool flank wear in all materials can be formulated as a function of cutting parameters tested. However, the order of importance of each cutting parameter on the tool flank wear is not identical in each material.Due to the heterogeneous distribution of SiC particles and the sudden collision of the cutting tool with SiC particles in the tested materials, it cannot be stated that a higher cutting speed may lead to higher tool flank wear size. Regardless of the type of tested material, it can be seen that more tool flank wear was observed in dry mode. When the depth of cut increases, the tool flank wear was also raised at some levels, but interaction effects between the depth of cut can be observed. The importance of each cutting parameter on the tool flank wear when machining the tested materials is presented in As noted earlier, the characterization of tool flank wear morphology is beyond the scope of this work. However, based on experimental observations in dry and lubricated milling under various cutting speeds, adhesion and abrasion were found in almost all cutting conditions. It is believed that abrasion initially occurred, whereas coating removal also occurred. This is followed by adhesion, but the experimental results show higher wear with hard additive particles . This phenomenon increases mechanical pressure and surface structure changes at high temperatures. The experimental result denoted that fabricating the Al520-MMC with such hard particles tends to generate a high-hardness and high-strength MMC, which may increase the tool wear compared to measurements made when machining Al510. However, the use of Sn and Bi tends to lower values of tool flank wear in the tested parts.The effects of cutting parameters on Ra and Rz were statistically insignificant, while the R2 was almost below 60% in all cases. Thus, it can be stated that despite the reinforcing elements used, both surface roughness attributes cannot be controlled by the cutting parameters used.It was observed that the wear increases at a higher cutting speed irrespective of the cooling method used.In some cases and due to the presence of SiC in the tested work parts and its heterogeneous distribution in the base material, inevitable collisions may occur between the cutting tooltip and the reinforcing elements. This phenomenon may tend to increase the wear drastically.The use of Bi and Sn in the matrix structure of the work part led to better surface quality than that observed when machining Al520.It was found that despite the material used, tool flank wear can be statistically controlled by cutting parameters. The effects of cutting speed and lubricant on the tool flank wear are very tangible. Depth of cut had the most negligible effects compared to other cutting parameters.Compared with the recorded tool flank wear in machining Al520 + 10% SiC, the use of Bi and Sn in the matrix structure of the work part led to better surface quality, and tool flank wear was decreased by around 50%.Lower tool flank wear was observed under wet machining than was observed under dry mode despite the reinforcing elements used.It can be stated that no clear relationship could be established between recorded values of tool flank wear in the base material (Al520) and reinforced composites with SiC, Bi, and Sn particles. However, this phenomenon could be related to different effects of each cutting parameter on the recorded values of tool flank wear when machining Al520-MMCs, reinforced with various elements. This observation agrees with the findings reported in This study aims to present the machinability of Al520-MMC, reinforced with Sic, Bi, and Sn as reinforcing elements. Besides the fabrication of Al-MMC blocks, the effects of cutting parameters and reinforcing elements on the surface quality elements (Ra and Rz) and tool flank wear were investigated in this work. According to statistical analysis, the effect of cutting parameters and reinforcing particles on the surface quality attributes (Ra and Rz) is not statistically significant. In contrast, the effect of cutting parameters and reinforcing particles on the tool flank wear is significant and reliable. In addition, it is observed that the reinforcing particles and cutting speed had the most significant effects, and the lubrication mode had minor effects on the tool flank wear. However, no clear relationship could be formulated between recorded values of tool flank wear when machining base material (Al520) and reinforced Al520-MMCs with Sic, Bi, and Sn. Other observations and conclusions can be drawn as follows:


Since the Global Burden of Disease study (GBD) has become more comprehensive, data for hundreds of causes of disease burden, measured using Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs), have become increasingly available for almost every part of the world. However, undergoing any systematic comparative analysis of the trends can be challenging given the quantity of data that must be presented.We use the GBD data to describe trends in cause-specific DALY rates for eight regions. We quantify the extent to which the importance of ‘major’ DALY causes changes relative to ‘minor’ DALY causes over time by decomposing changes in the Gini coefficient into ‘proportionality’ and ‘reranking’ indices.The fall in regional DALY rates since 1990 has been accompanied by generally positive proportionality indices and reranking indices of negligible magnitude. However, the rate at which DALY rates have been falling has slowed and, at the same time, proportionality indices have tended towards zero. These findings are clearest where the focus is exclusively upon non-communicable diseases. Notably, large and positive proportionality indices are recorded for sub-Saharan Africa over the last decade.The positive proportionality indices show that disease burden has become less concentrated around the leading causes over time, and this trend has become less prominent as the DALY rate decline has slowed. The recent decline in disease burden in sub-Saharan Africa is disproportionally driven by improvements in DALY rates for HIV/AIDS, as well as for malaria, diarrheal diseases, and lower respiratory infections. By grouping causes of death as ‘communicable, maternal, neo-natal and nutritional diseases (CMNN)’, ‘non-communicable diseases (NCDs)’, and ‘injuries’, Murray and Lopez  summarizHealth trends are continuously monitored and presented by international collaborators However, deriving clear trend data from the GBD study is a challenging task because it requires summarizing data on a particular health metric across 28 possible years, 290 potential classifications of DALY causes for 195 countries and territories, i.e. for over a million data points. Recent publications e.g. , 18, 28), 2818, 2We use two quantitative measures that summarize (1) whether, over time, the growing or declining overall DALY rates are disproportionally attributable to ‘major’  or ‘minor’  DALY causes, and (2) whether there are substantial changes in the ranking of diseases in terms of severity. These two measures derive from a decomposition of the Gini coefficient. The Gini was originally developed to measure changes in income inequality and mobility. In this context, the Gini captures the degree to which the disease burden is more or less concentrated among disease causes.For policymakers, the two measures provide a helpful extension to complement existing trend data on cause-specific DALYs by summarizing a large amount of data that may otherwise be hard to interpret. The first measure broadly informs on the relative importance of disease causes. This analysis over time could therefore form an instrumental part of the process of deciding whether resources should be reallocated in response to the changing relative importance of major or minor causes. Additionally, it is widely accepted that increasing uncertainty should lead to the diversification of risks. Hence, with rising uncertainty on the importance of DALY causes — the recent COVID-19 epidemic is a clear illustration of that — as reflected in the variability of the measures over time, it is wise to spread the allocation of resources across a variety of diseases . The summary measures also provide more food for thought on how to reallocate resources strategically (and by how much). For example, the stability in the absolute ranking of diseases may provide suggestive evidence that the prioritization of resources between different disease causes should also remain stable. Discussions on reallocation of attention and resources could be initiated by the WHO and the World Bank, as well as by national governments.The paper proceeds as follows: the Measures of concentration such as the Gini coefficient have most frequently been used as tools to evaluate the degree of relative income or wealth inequality e.g. , 17, 30), 3017, 3rates are disproportionately concentrated in high- versus low-ranked causes. To illustrate how this can be done, Fig. In a similar way, we make use of the rankings of the causes of DALYs, but the aim here is to instead understand to what extent DALY The vertical axis shows the cumulative share of the total disease burden resulting from each cause. If all disease causes had equal shares of DALY rates, then the cumulative distribution would simply be a diagonal line, indicating perfect equality. In reality, Fig. The degree of inequality can be measured by a Gini coefficient defined as twice the area between the equality line and the Lorenz curve. The Gini is bounded between 0 and 1. A value that is close to 1 (0) indicates that the disease burden is more (less) concentrated in the major causes (see G) but the most interesting information can be obtained from decomposing this change into two parts. Jenkins and van Kerm [The Gini coefficient provides a fairly simple way to express the extent to which DALY rates are more or less concentrated in certain causes. It can also measure changes over time as a difference in Ginis  — causes are disproportionately responsible for the declining aggregate rates.P is combined with reduced DALY rates, meaning that the major diseases were disproportionally responsible for the declines of the disease burden.The interpretation of Each of the potential interpretations of the sign of the proportionality index are summarized in Table 5R, now gives an indication of the importance of the change in ranks of disease burden causes. It therefore summarizes the ‘mobility’ and stability of disease causes. When diseases do not change ranks over time, the reranking index R equals 0 and it increases when more reranking takes place. To illustrate the interpretation of P, R, and the Gini coefficient, consider the possible reasons for a small change in Gini (concentration of disease burden) over time. First, substantial proportionality (high level of P) can be offset by substantial reranking (a high R). That is, while the major diseases are disproportionally responsible for the decline in disease burden, the concentration of disease burden remains similar if there is substantial reranking over time. Second, a small change in concentration may be caused by both low proportionality and reranking.The reranking index, The data used are taken from the 2017 GBD study which is publicly available and can be accessed by the query tool on the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) website. Annual estimates of DALY burdens are available from 1990 to 2017, for 195 countries and 290 causes of DALYs . 66To better illustrate our main results in the tables, the analyses are complemented with information for individual diseases obtained from the GBD query tool and GBD Compare. This information is used in the main text to clarify the analyses, but they are not the focus of this paper. In particular, DALY rates are provided alongside the decomposition indices to facilitate the interpretation of the proportionality indices. The number of causes that are used in each decomposition calculation is presented in brackets in each table.P indices. The range of values used to determine the percentile-based colour shading is determined by the P index values presented in each table, so it is not consistent with shading in other tables. All computations were done using age-standardized DALY rates, as is appropriate in order to better account for the differences in age structures across the world and the changing age structures within regions over time [Colour shading indicates the relative size of the ver time .7 MoreovTable Sub-Saharan Africa experienced increases in both overall DALY rates, and in the Gini coefficient. Underlying this are high reranking and negative proportionality indices which are primarily are result of the rapid development of the HIV/AIDS epidemic during this period. HIV/AIDS first overtook malaria, then diarrheal diseases, then lower respiratory infections, and by 1999 it had become the leading cause of DALYs. In sharp contrast to this, the large positive proportionality index for the 2008 to 2017 period signals the steep falls in the HIV/AIDS DALY rate, as well as for malaria, diarrheal diseases, and lower respiratory infections. Secondly, the period 1999 to 2008 shows relatively large-size and positive R and P indices in South East Asia, East Asia, and Oceania, combined with a particularly steep drop in total DALY rates. This is primarily caused by the sharp fall for two of the leading causes of DALYs from 1999: chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and lower respiratory infections. These declines also led to reductions in their rankings which, in turn, led to IHD, intracerebral haemorrhage, and stroke regaining their former places in the rankings.Along with DALY rates, Gini coefficients have generally fallen over the period. This is the result of disproportionate drops among the major causes. The table summarizes changes in the relative importance of CoD. We focus here on two regions where rather dramatic changes occurred. First, for the period from 1990 to 1999, While the retrospective information on longer-term trends is of interest, for the purpose of aiding policymakers in making investment and resource reallocation decisions, we now adopt a shorter-term view. In Table ‘Exposure to the forces of nature’ were disproportionately responsible for these. This cause also influences the reranking index since it is a major cause in 1 year and a minor cause in all other years.During this decade, the large decline in HIV/AIDS and, to a lesser extent, in malaria and tuberculosis, is responsible for the observed trends in the proportionality indices for Sub-Saharan Africa. While such trends are less clear for other regions, some outliers are discernible. The 2009/2010 Latin America and Caribbean and the 2007/2008 South East Asia, East Asia, and Oceania proportionality indices correspond to the 2010 Haiti and 2008 Sichuan earthquakes, respectively , 31. TheP indices, especially since 2013. This means that the falls in rates of disease burden in most regions were increasingly due to disproportionate falls among lower ranked causes. Over time, it can be seen that in North Africa and the Middle East, much as in Sub-Saharan Africa, the size of the proportionality index is quite high in several years. This signals that there are substantial changes in the relative importance of diseases. This finding is likely explained by conflict and violence in North Africa and the Middle East.More generally, regions experienced falls in rates of disease burden see Fig. . Table 3In Tables HIV/AIDS and STIs category in sub-Saharan Africa indicate that the cause HIV/AIDS resulting in other diseases fell far more steeply than other causes within that category. The South Asia region shows the second highest CMNN DALY rate after sub-Saharan Africa. The negative proportionality indices for this region within the Neglected tropical diseases and malaria category reflect the rises in DALY rates from dengue fever, which appear to outweigh the reductions in DALY rates from malaria.Table P index for Neoplasms in Central and Eastern Europe. This may signal the steeper drops in lung and stomach cancer DALY rates relative to other cancers. Table P indices due to the 2010 Haiti and 2008 Sichuan earthquakes. These also explain the overall P indices but are more pronounced when restricting attention to injuries.Table R and P indices were particularly large in South East Asia, East Asia, and Oceania. However, in spite of these large and important changes, the change in the overall Gini coefficient is almost negligible and does not reveal the underlying changes. Therefore, this example illustrates the usefulness of the decomposition for identifying changes in the relative importance of causes.The relevance of our suggested measures is apparent from the results for the period 1999 to 2008. For example, during this period, Through year-on-year comparisons of proportionality indices, we found that minor diseases are becoming more important in explaining the declining disease burden. It is likely that the decreased rate of reductions in DALY rates due to IHD and the continuing rise in importance of causes such as Alzheimer’s disease, especially in high-income countries, are among the most important contributors to this trend. The relative importance of already high-ranked causes has been rising in recent years because DALY rates for these causes have fallen at a slower rate than for minor causes. This observation could justify more resources being reallocated to the corresponding types of health care interventions. However, the small size of the reranking indices suggests that resources should not be reallocated in a way that allows for the amount of resources allocated to lower ranked causes to overtake that of the higher ranked. At the regional level, the large proportionality indices for Sub-Saharan Africa signal that the relative importance of diseases is quite variable over time. The best way forward for investments and resource allocation seems to be to target multiple CoD burden in order to best mitigate the risks associated with future uncertainty.Cardiovascular diseases category.Cause-specific analyses suggest that the relative importance between disease causes is rising most for CMNN diseases, which is demonstrated by their indices being generally higher than for NCDs. For most NCDs in most regions, the proportionality indices are either relatively constant, or falling in more recent years. This is likely to reflect the effect of a slowing down in the reduction of IHD disease burden. This is confirmed by the results for the Our study has limitations. First, while the proportionality index is useful to identify which CoD burdens are changing in importance relative to one another, its value will be close to zero if there are no changes in relative importance. This means that readers should be careful to note that just because the value of the index is low; this does not mean that there are no changes in the aggregate DALY rates, i.e. DALY rates could be rising or falling at the same rates for all causes. It is therefore advisable, as is done in our tables, to view the index in conjunction with changes in aggregate rates. Second, we provide summary measures to interpret extensive amounts of data. Of course, the interpretation of these measures still needs scrutiny of the underlying data to evaluate what is driving the change in these measures to inform policy. Third, there is uncertainty in the GBD estimates, and the GBD provides the 95% confidence intervals. For the purposes of this paper, only the central estimate has been used.The findings presented here demonstrate the usefulness of the Gini decomposition as a way of summarizing the data on trends for the large number of disease burden causes. It has a major advantage which no current method of summarizing the data manages to overcome: no matter how many of the 290 CoD burden are included in its calculation, it can summarize in a single statistic whether or not the leading CoD burden are rising or falling in importance, and whether any significant reranking is taking place.For every region of the world, more recent years have witnessed lower — and in some cases negative — values of proportionality indices combined with a general deceleration in the rate of falls in disease burden rates. This finding implies that the rate of decline in the rates of disease burden of the leading causes has slowed relative to that of lower ranked causes.The condensed nature of the presented data allows readers to more easily discover whether, for particular world regions, countries, or groups of causes, the leading CoD burden are becoming more or less important relative to lower ranked causes. For policymakers, the use of this summary measure could help to decide whether resources need to be reoriented to meet such a challenge.


With the technical growth and the reduction of deployment cost for distributed energy resources (DERs), such as solar photovoltaic (PV), energy trading has been recently encouraged to energy consumers, which can sell energy from their own energy storage system (ESS). Meanwhile, due to the unprecedented rise of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, some countries  have mandated using a renewable energy certificate (REC) in energy trading markets. In this paper, we propose an energy broker model to boost energy trading between the existing power grid and energy consumers. In particular, to maximize the profits of energy consumers and the energy provider, the proposed energy broker is in charge of deciding the optimal demand and dynamic price of energy in an REC-based energy trading market. In this solution, the smart agents  of consumers exchange energy trading associated information, including the amount of energy generation, price and REC. For deciding the optimal demand and dynamic pricing, we formulate convex optimization problems using dual decomposition. Through a numerical simulation analysis, we compare the performance of the proposed dynamic pricing strategy with the conventional pricing strategies. Results show that the proposed dynamic pricing and demand control strategies can encourage energy trading by allowing RECs trading of the conventional power grid. With technological advancement and growing awareness on how fossil-fuel-based energy generation is contributing unprecedentedly to global warming and climate change, more and more people are adopting eco-friendly distributed energy resources (DERs) . Despite the fact that DERs producing energy from renewable energy sources (RESs) have weather-dependent output, they are increasingly becoming common in different parts of the world (they are growing both in numbers and production capacity) ,2,3. GenDue to these energy trading shifts from the conventional energy exchange to energy brokers, dynamic pricing is considered for balancing energy demand and distribution . At a poPrevious research findings in ,17,18,19In particular, the existing studies had some limitations, as the focus was on the benefits of energy trading only from the consumer’s perspective if the residual energy after the consumption was traded. Therefore, based on this premise, if the consumer trades the remaining energy into the REC where an energy provider can buy to reduce greenhouse gases (GHGs), the consumer essentially benefits from the energy trading. In addition, since energy providers can benefit from the reduction of carbon emissions by purchasing these RECs, REC trading benefits energy providers as well as consumers. Consequently, if existing studies were focused only on profit optimization from an energy seller’s perspective, the proposed study addressed demand and pricing optimization for both sellers  and buyers  in consideration of REC, which has few previous studies.In this paper, we investigate a dynamic pricing and demand control mechanism to maximize the profits of a single energy provider and consumers. The energy provider produces energy from its conventional energy sources  and buys RECs from the DERs. The DER owners  also use ESSs in order to store energy for future use.Contrary to the existing energy trading, we propose a new energy trading model facilitated by an energy broker, which also uses ESS in order to compensate for the fluctuating output from the energy generators. Particularly, the clean energy sources (DERs) and the conventional energy can be traded through the proposed energy broker where an energy provider and consumers participate in.To design the proposed energy trading model, we define an energy consumer model and energy provider model to maximize the benefits of energy consumers and providers. The energy consumer model includes a consumer utility function, an ESS cost function, and an RES cost function. On the other hand, the energy provider model considers a generation cost function and an RES trading profit function.In detail, we define demand and pricing decision problems considering RECs, RESs, ESSs, and their operation costs. First, to maximize the profit of the energy provider, we design an energy provider model, which decides optimal dynamic price for selling and the optimal amount of RECs that the energy provider ought to buy. Next, we design an energy consumer model to obtain the optimal energy demand from the energy provider while reducing the operation cost of RESs and ESSs.Via well-designed utility and functions, we formulate a demand-based optimization problem and optimal dynamic pricing decision to maximize the utilities of the energy provider and consumers. Using dual decomposition based on the convex optimization, we obtain the optimal Dynamic Selling through Dynamic Buying (DSDB) scheme, which runs at the energy broker in a day-ahead market.Finally, the results obtained through numerical simulation show that the proposed DSDB scheme outperforms the conventional pricing schemes. Furthermore, we evaluate our proposed DSDB using real-world energy market data where there exist various patterns of energy demand and energy generation.In particular, the contributions of this work are stated as follows:The rest of this article is organized as follows. We propose a demand-based trading mechanism with dynamic pricing for both selling and buying of energy in this section. We refer to our proposed scheme as DSDB in the subsequent part of this paper. According to the DSDB scheme, the selling and buying price of energy for a consumer is set dynamically by the energy broker in order to maximize total utility. In other words, with this proposed approach, consumers are charged a dynamic selling price and provided with a dynamic buying price by the energy broker. Using this scheme, the consumers can control their energy demand depending on the buying price as well as sell their own RES energy in the case when a higher selling price is offered. In this paper, we define RES energy as capacity  per hour for RES.Considering an energy broker market where consumers are capable of producing energy from their DERs and participate in energy trading, we propose our system model, as depicted in The SEAs can be mounted on energy providers, energy brokers, and energy consumer sides. Therefore, information, such as power generation, energy price, consumption, and renewable energy trading can be defined as distributed local information in their respective areas, and global information can be updated over the communication network to update their local information again. Therefore, for energy brokers, the centralized framework processes the local information received from each SEA and provides updated information to each of the SEAs. As suggested in , the funThe notations that are used for mathematical expressions presented in the subsequent part of this paper are tabulated in We formulate the quantity of energy used by the Then, let us define The RES energy is resold here, which implies that the PVs of consumers have produced energy during the day. The consumer then produces and spends for its own energy and stores the remaining energy in the ESS. It also sells the remaining ESS energy to the energy broker during high-priced hours. Furthermore, we can take into account the stored energy capacity of an ESS as The ESS of the x is the level of energy usage for the consumer, s is the quantity of the energy selling level of the consumer. Specifically, the utility function describes the level of consumer satisfaction that consumers experience from charging ESS and selling energy as a function of its energy usage for each consumer. Therefore, we suppose that the consumer utility functions meet the following properties according to different consumers.We can formulate the different consumer behavior based on a differentiated selection of various utility-based functions . We can (I)Utility function is nondecreasing. This implies mathematically that(II)A marginal benefit function is defined asThe above marginal benefit of a consumer is nonincreasing. Therefore, it can be rewritten asThat is to say, the utility function is concave. This implies that the satisfaction level of the consumers can gradually become saturated.(III)We assume that without energy consumption, there is no utility. Namely, we can present this asThere are various choices of utility functions in the literature to formulate the satisfaction of energy consumers. From the aspect of microeconomics, we model the reactions of different consumers by using the concept of utility function . Here, wfunction ,27, defiThe ESS operation cost depends on how much and how speedily it charges and discharges energy. Consequently, it is assumed that the ESS operational cost function  of ei,k . The ESSLemma 1.The proposed Proof. From Equation , we can The selling cost of the energy from a RES generator is described as a function ice from . The firice from  are the Therefore, the cost function of the RES energy is formulated as follows:We indicate the energy generated from the energy provider within the P indicates the price value per unit carbon emissions (P > 0), and P and We present how the energy provider can turn carbon footprint reductions into substantial profits through RECs trading. The Kyoto Protocol grant offsetting is a way for government and private enterprises to obtain carbon credits that they could trade in the marketplace . Carbon g theory  can be eEquation  indicateThe relationship between carbon emissions and RES energy is represented as f energy . The eneWe describe deled as ,28,3221), respHere, firstly, we require to reconfigure the parameters nstraint  and paranstraint . For thenstraint , we can Moreover, the Lagrange dual function is expressed in .(23)g(νstraints  and 21)(23)gLDue to the individuality of consumers, the duality function in  can be rFor clarity,  can be oFor simplicity,  can be rAt this point, a consumer subproblem  and an eproblems  and 29)νk and seHere, we convert the primal problem  to the dConsequently, instead of finding a solution to a primal problem, we can find a solution to a dual problem.In this subsection, we design our demand-based trading mechanism with a dynamic pricing model of RESs to find a solution concerning the dual problem. Here, we can find a solution to the problem iteratively using the gradient projection method  as folloHere, bproblem  concernibproblem  with a gAlgorithm 1 Consumer’s Demand Decision Algorithm1:procedureConsumer Demand   per kWh (USD 0.0687 per kWh), and the battery capacity of an ESS is 6 kWh for residential areas. Although the our mathematical formulation can be extended by considering the residential areas with different ESS capacities, for the sake of simplicity, we suppose that the ESSs deployed in residential areas have the same capacity in this performance evaluation. At this point, it is worth noting that in a real deployment scenario, the residential users deploy lithium-ion-based accumulator batteries in order to attain desired capacity. According to , the priw is arbitrarily decided within a range from 0.5 to 6.5. Additionally, in our performance evaluation, we use real market data from independent electricity system operator market report [We assume that every consumer has different minimal and maximal bound of energy demand requirement. The decision variables we consider here have real values. Each consumer’s preference t report  in orderWe measure the total energy demand of consumers under three different cases, with different resource configurations on the consumer side: (i) the consumers do not have both PV and ESS, (ii) the consumers have only ESS, and (iii) the consumers have both PV and ESS.As depicted in (I)Fixed Selling through Fixed Buying (FSFB) scheme: According to this scheme, the consumers are charged with a fixed selling price and provided with a fixed buying price , which i(II)Fixed Selling through Dynamic Buying (FSDB) scheme: This strategy charges consumers a fixed selling price and provides consumers with a dynamic buying price for RES energy.(III)Dynamic Selling through Fixed Buying (DSFB) scheme: This strategy allows the consumers a dynamic selling price and provides them with a fixed buying price for RES energy . In thisAccording to our proposed DSDB scheme, a consumer has a dynamic selling and buying price of energy, which is decided by the energy broker. In this subsection, we want to evaluate this proposed scheme with three other conventional schemes, which are stated below:Next, we evaluate DSDB (proposed scheme), DSFB, FSDB and FSFB under the case where the consumers are equipped with both PV and ESS. Furthermore, we analyze those four strategies of pricing based on the proposed total utility.In this performance evaluation, we consider that the energy broker is equipped with an ESS. When the energy provider produces more energy than the consumers’ demand, the residual energy will be discarded inefficiently. Currently, an ESS is expensive to install, but the cost of its installation will gradually decline with technological advancements in the foreseeable future. Bearing this in mind, we consider that the energy broker will be equipped with a low-cost ESS in the coming days. This will allow the energy broker to store the residual energy and sell it to the consumers when necessary. Considering that the energy brokers would have low-cost ESS for storing energy in the future, we want to evaluate those four strategies.First of all, for evaluating those four strategies, we consider the current installation cost of an ESS. The installation cost of an ESS 1 MWh is about KRW 540 million in the Republic of Korea  . Figure In view of this case when ESS cost would be reduced in the future, let us consider that the installation cost of an ESS 1 MWh is about KRW 5 million in the Republic of Korea (USD 4297). With the drop of an ESS price, we surmise that the number of energy brokers with ESS will increase significantly in the future. Considering such a case, we present the total utility of those four strategies in In a nutshell, in both cases , our proposed DSDB provides the highest total utility among all the strategies. However, looking at this table, one can realize that when an ESS price is low, DSDB leads to ensuring 3.52% more profit compared to the case when the price is high.In this paper, we have proposed an optimal demand and dynamic pricing mechanism in order to maximize the profit of consumers by increasing the profit of an energy provider in an energy trading ecosystem where clean energy generation is encouraged through RECs trading. We formulated convex optimization problems using dual decomposition in order to decide the optimal demand and dynamic pricing. Considering the present and future deployment cost of ESS in an energy broker, we have rigorously studied the proposed DSDB scheme and observed that it noticeably increases the profit of both the consumer and energy provider no matter how the price of ESSs changes. In the proposed mechanism, regardless of the cost of ESS, the total utility of DSDB is approximately 15% higher than that of the existing FSFB. As a result, we found that the proposed mechanism in terms of total utility is excellent when adjusting demand with dynamic prices. The limitation of this proposed study is that when the number of agents increases, it becomes more complicated to calculate as a centralized case, and there is also a disadvantage that the decision of the target to be traded will be delayed in real-time. In addition, distributed cases have the disadvantage of having to pay for the use of communication overheads to solve problems by exchanging local information with other SEAs, so structural studies on overcoming these limitations are also necessary.In the future, the spread of DER is expected to lead to the basic installation and use of PV and ESS for each household, and the proposed mechanism will help consumers benefit from an economical reduction in energy supply costs. Therefore, our proposed mechanism is expected to be used as an IoT application to the large scale energy trading market where existing energy providers and consumers participate more actively.