Mobil Corporation (originally Standard Oil Company of New York and then Socony-Vacuum Oil Company) was an American oil company that merged with Exxon in 1999 to form ExxonMobil. Prior to its merger with Exxon, Mobil was one of the Seven Sisters that dominated the global petroleum industry from the mid-1940s until the 1970s. As one of the 34 original companies to descend from the breakup of Standard Oil, Mobil was originally known as the Standard Oil Company of New York (Socony). Mobil credits itself with being the first company to introduce paying at the pump at its gas stations, as well as the first company to introduce a mobile payment device, today known as Speedpass. Today, Mobil continues as a brand name within the combined company, as well as still being a gas station sometimes paired with its own store or On the Run. Mobil's brand name is primarily used to market motor oils, such as Mobil 1. The former Mobil headquarters in Fairfax County, Virginia, was used as ExxonMobil's downstream headquarters until 2015 when ExxonMobil consolidated employees into a new corporate campus in Spring, Texas.
Child begging in Abeokuta, Nigeria, has become a prominent and troubling feature of urban life, reflecting entrenched socio-economic inequalities, ineffective welfare systems, and weak urban governance. This study assesses the environmental and spatial impacts of child begging, focusing on socio-economic backgrounds, key drivers, and distribution patterns. Using mixed methods (headcounts, 164 questionnaires, and 6 interviews), this research tests whether socio-economic attributes vary across residential zones. Results show significant differences in religion (chi 2 = 9.674, p = 0.046) and age (F = 2.909, p = 0.023), indicating variation across zones. Primary drivers include economic hardship, religious norms, and armed conflict. The Relative Importance Index identifies critical socio-environmental impacts: public abuse (RII = 3.71), road accidents (RII = 3.70), and criminal coercion (RII = 3.62). Spatial analysis pinpoints road junctions, markets, and religious centers as hotspots for child begging. The study concludes that child begging is a geographically embedded symptom of a deeper, historically rooted socio-structural failure and recommends integrated interventions, context-specific urban planning, faith-based charitable reforms, targeted poverty alleviation, compulsory education enforcement, and multi-level policy coordination, to address the root causes and mitigate the socio-environmental impacts of child begging in Abeokuta and similar urban settings.
DAIS is a step forward in the area of artificial intelligence and edge computing. DAIS intends to create a complete framework for self-organizing, energy efficient and private-by-design distributed AI. DAIS is a European project with a consortium of 47 partners from 11 countries coordinated by RISE Research Institute of Sweden.
Renewable Energy certificates (RECs), as Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) assets, are growing in value globally, based on the need to solve climate challenges. RECs are also proven viable market-friendly instruments, with carbon markets exponentially growing for trading them, since they facilitate measuring and tracking energy from clean renewable sources. However, RECs are subject to traceability, reliability, security, and high costs challenges, especially when used within a system for decentralised energy assets. This article explored RECs with blockchain technology, to manage traceability of RECs for making smaller, decentralised energy assets green by matching energy consumption with renewable energy production. A proof-of-concept (POC) was developed around EV charging with fractional RECs, with three RECs use cases tested in a microgrid demonstrator in Singapore. The prioritized use cases were used to depict scenarios for how individuals and businesses with or without renewable energy assets can acquire RECs to achieve their decarbonisation goals.
The penetration of microporous layers (MPL) into gas diffusion layers (GDL) is a common phenomenon in proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells. However, research on this phenomenon is few and its influence law and mechanism need to be further investigated. In this study, a three-dimensional, multiphase and non-isothermal fuel cell model is established to investigate the effects of penetration ratio, total thickness of GDL and transition region (TR) and operating pressure on fuel cells' mass transport and performance. The results show that, under high output voltage, performance increases as the increase of penetration ratio. Under low output voltage, 15% penetration ratio achieves the best fuel cell performance. In addition, 15% penetration ratio attains the lowest average membrane electrode assembly ohmic resistance, GDL and TR thicknesses and operating pressures. The existence of TR changes the liquid distribution; saturation decreases from the GDL side to the MPL side. Moreover, the penetration affects the membrane water content, and its distribution becomes more non-uniform as penetration ratio increases.
