Comparison of Efficacy and Safety of Balloon Dilation Versus Gradual Dilation in Patients with Obesity Undergoing Supine Percutaneous Nephrolithotomy.

We aimed to compare the safety and efficacy of gradual dilatation (GD) and balloon dilatation (BD) in supine percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PNL) in patients with obesity. The study was performed on 164 patients with a body mass index (BMI) ≥30 kg/m who underwent supine PNL in the Galdakao-modified Valdivia position. Sixty patients who underwent tract creation with BD were defined as Group 1, and 104 patients who underwent tract creation with GD were defined as Group 2.

Mitigating energy risk through energy sources diversification.

This article assesses the effect of energy diversity on energy risk across 64 countries over the period of 2000-2018. Employing methodologies including threshold regression, Method of Moments of Quantile Regression (MMQR), partially linear functional-coefficient (PLFC) panel models and instrumental variable (IV) estimation, our findings suggest that energy diversity plays a significant role in reducing energy risk. Panel threshold and partially linear functional-coefficient models highlight the importance of energy diversification in mitigating energy risk, particularly in countries with higher levels of economic development.

Spatial effects of renewable and fossil energy consumption on the ecological footprint for the EU Countries.

This study examines the spillover of pollution among the 26 European Union (EU) countries from 1995 to 2020. In order to quantify pollution spillovers among the countries, we estimated the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) using spatial econometric methods. Our research is unique in that it investigates ecological footprint spillovers for EU countries.

How do energy consumption, globalization, and income inequality affect environmental quality across growth regimes?

This paper investigates the impacts of renewable and nonrenewable energy consumption, income inequality, and globalization on the ecological footprints of 49 countries for the period of 1995-2018. Panel cointegration test reveals a long-run relationship between the variables. Long-run parameter estimates derived from AMG and CCEMG, increasing income and nonrenewable energy consumption, have a significant positive impact on the ecological footprint, while countries that consume more renewable energy have seen an improvement in the quality of the environment.

Testing the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis in the transport sector for OECD countries: a dynamic panel threshold approach.

This study tests the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis in the transport sector for 28 OECD countries from 1990 to 2019. As a novelty, the relationship between gross domestic product (GDP) and carbon dioxide (CO) emissions from the transport sector is investigated with the estimation of the dynamic panel threshold regression based on the generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator by Seo and Shin (Seo and Shin, J Econom 2:169-186, 2016). This approach enables us to test EKC and capture possible nonlinearities between variables.