Search results for: cost deviation

Authors: Ya-Chi Yu, Pei-Syuan Ruan, Shao-Wen Chen, Yu-Hsien Chang, Jin-Der Lee, Jong-Rong Wang, Chunkuan Shih

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This study analyzed the transient signals of central region void fraction of air-water two-phase flow in a 3x3 rod bundle. Experimental tests were carried out utilizing a vertical rod bundle test section along with a set of air-water supply/flow control system, and the transient signals of the central region void fraction were collected through the electrical conductivity sensors as well as visualized via high speed photography. By converting the electric signals, transient void fraction can be obtained through the voltage ratios. With a fixed superficial water velocity (J_f=0.094 m/s), two different superficial air velocities (J_g=0.094 m/s and 0.236 m/s) were tested and presented, which were corresponding to the flow conditions of bubbly flows and cap/slug flows, respectively. The time averaged central region void fraction was obtained as 0.109-0.122 with 0.028 standard deviation for the selected bubbly flow and 0.188-0.221with 0.101 standard deviation for the selected cap/slug flow, respectively. Through Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) analysis, no clear frequency peak was found in bubbly flow, while two dominant frequencies were identified around 1.6 Hz and 2.5 Hz in the present cap/slug flow.

Keywords: central region, rod bundles, transient void fraction, two-phase flow

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Authors: Widyani Fatwa Dewi, Subroto Athor

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In a telecommunication service provider, quantity and interval of customer demand often difficult to predict due to high dependency on customer expansion strategy and technological development. Demand arrives when a customer needs to add capacity to an existing site or build a network in a new site. Because demand is uncertain for each period, and sometimes there is a null demand for several equipments, it is categorized as intermittent. This research aims to improve demand forecast quality in Indonesia's telecommunication service providers by using Artificial Neural Network. In Artificial Neural Network, the pattern or relationship within data will be analyzed using the training process, followed by the learning process as validation stage. Historical demand data for 36 periods is used to support this research. It is found that demand forecast by using Artificial Neural Network outperforms the existing method if it is reviewed on two criteria: the forecast accuracy, using Mean Absolute Deviation (MAD), Mean of the sum of the Squares of the Forecasting Error (MSE), Mean Error (ME) and service level which is shown through inventory cost. This research is expected to increase the reference for a telecommunication demand forecast, which is currently still limited.

Keywords: artificial neural network, demand forecast, forecast accuracy, intermittent, service level, telecommunication

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Authors: Lundqvist M., Alwin J., Levin L-A.

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Background: Assistance dogs are dogs trained to assist persons with functional impairment or chronic diseases. The assistance dog concept includes different types: guide dogs, hearing dogs, and service dogs. The service dog can further be divided into subgroups of physical services dogs, diabetes alert dogs, and seizure alert dogs. To examine the long-term effects of health care interventions, both in terms of resource use and health outcomes, cost-effectiveness analyses can be conducted. This analysis can provide important input to decision-makers when setting priorities. Little is known when it comes to the cost-effectiveness of assistance dogs. The study aimed to assess the cost-effectiveness of certified service or hearing dogs in comparison to regular companion dogs. Methods: The main data source for the analysis was the “service and hearing dog project”. It was a longitudinal interventional study with a pre-post design that incorporated fifty-five owners and their dogs. Data on all relevant costs affected by the use of a service dog such as; municipal services, health care costs, costs of sick leave, and costs of informal care were collected. Health-related quality of life was measured with the standardized instrument EQ-5D-3L. A decision-analytic Markov model was constructed to conduct the cost-effectiveness analysis. Outcomes were estimated over a 10-year time horizon. The incremental cost-effectiveness ratio expressed as cost per gained quality-adjusted life year was the primary outcome. The analysis employed a societal perspective. Results: The result of the cost-effectiveness analysis showed that compared to a regular companion dog, a certified dog is cost-effective with both lower total costs [-32,000 USD] and more quality-adjusted life-years [0.17]. Also, we will present subgroup results analyzing the cost-effectiveness of physicals service dogs and diabetes alert dogs. Conclusions: The study shows that a certified dog is cost-effective in comparison with a regular companion dog for individuals with functional impairments or chronic diseases. Analyses of uncertainty imply that further studies are needed.

Keywords: service dogs, hearing dogs, health economics, Markov model, quality-adjusted, life years

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Authors: Nahid Hassanshahi, Ayoub Karimi-Jashni, Nasser Talebbeydokhti

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Due to the economic and environmental benefits of producing less waste, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) introduces source reduction as one of the most important means to deal with the problems caused by increased landfills and pollution. Waste reduction involves all waste management methods, including source reduction, recycling, and composting, which reduce waste flow to landfills or other disposal facilities. Source reduction of waste can be studied from two perspectives: avoiding waste production, or reducing per capita waste production, and waste deviation that indicates the reduction of waste transfer to landfills. The present paper has investigated home composting as a managerial solution for reduction of waste transfer to landfills. Home composting has many benefits. The use of household waste for the production of compost will result in a much smaller amount of waste being sent to landfills, which in turn will reduce the costs of waste collection, transportation and burial. Reducing the volume of waste for disposal and using them for the production of compost and plant fertilizer might help to recycle the material in a shorter time and to use them effectively in order to preserve the environment and reduce contamination. Producing compost in a home-based manner requires very small piece of land for preparation and recycling compared with other methods. The final product of home-made compost is valuable and helps to grow crops and garden plants. It is also used for modifying the soil structure and maintaining its moisture. The food that is transferred to landfills will spoil and produce leachate after a while. It will also release methane and greenhouse gases. But, composting these materials at home is the best way to manage degradable materials, use them efficiently and reduce environmental pollution. Studies have shown that the benefits of the sale of produced compost and the reduced costs of collecting, transporting, and burying waste can well be responsive to the costs of purchasing home compost machine and the cost of related trainings. Moreover, the process of producing home compost may be profitable within 4 to 5 years and as a result, it will have a major role in reducing waste management.

Keywords: compost, home compost, reducing waste, waste management

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Authors: John Onyima, Ikechukwu Ezepue

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Virtualization and cloud computing are among the fast-growing computing innovations in recent times. Organisations all over the world are moving their computing services towards the cloud this is because of its rapid transformation of the organization’s infrastructure and improvement of efficient resource utilization and cost reduction. However, this technology brings new security threats and challenges about safety, reliability and data confidentiality. Evidently, no single security technique can guarantee security or protection against malicious attacks on a cloud computing network hence an integrated model of intrusion detection and prevention system has been proposed. Anomaly-based and signature-based detection techniques will be integrated to enable the network and its host defend themselves with some level of intelligence. The anomaly-base detection was implemented using the local deviation factor graph-based (LDFGB) algorithm while the signature-based detection was implemented using the snort algorithm. Results from this collaborative intrusion detection and prevention techniques show robust and efficient security architecture for cloud computing networks.

Keywords: anomaly-based detection, cloud computing, intrusion detection, intrusion prevention, signature-based detection

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Authors: Arsany Philip Fawzy

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This study is going to address the hurdles of project management in the joinery field. It is widely divided into two sections; the first one will shed light on how to execute large-scale projects with a specific focus on the middle east region. It will also raise major obstacles that may face the joinery team from the site clearance and the coordination between the joinery team and the construction team. The second section is going to technically analyze the commercial side of the joinery and how to control the main cost of the project to avoid financial problems. It will also suggest empirical solutions to monitor the cost impact (e.g., Variation of contract quantity and claims).

Keywords: clearance, quality, cost, variation, claim

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Authors: Cassandra Springate, Alexandra Furber, Jack E. Hines

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Objectives: To create an evidence map of the cost-utility studies available with non-small cell lung cancer patients, and identify the geographical settings and interventions used. Methods: Using the Disease, Study Type, and Model Type filters in heoro.com we identified all cost-utility studies published between 1960 and 2017 with patients with non-small cell lung cancer. These papers were then indexed according to pre-specified categories. Results: Heoro.com identified 89 independent publications, published between 1995 and 2017. Of the 89 papers, 74 were published since 2010, 28 were from the USA, and 35 were from Europe, 16 of which were from the UK. Other publications were from China and Japan (13), Canada (9), Australia and New Zealand (4), and other countries (8). Fifty-nine studies included a chemotherapy intervention, of which 23 included erlotinib or gefitinib, 21 included pemetrexed or docetaxel, others included nivolumab (3), pembrolizumab (2), crizotinib (2), denosumab (2), necitumumab (1), and bevacizumab (1). Also, 19 studies modeled screening, staging, or surveillance strategies. Conclusions: The cost-utility studies found for NSCLC most commonly looked at the effectiveness of different chemotherapy treatments, with some also evaluating the addition of screening strategies. Most were also conducted with patient data from the USA and Europe.

Keywords: cancer, cost-utility, economic model, non-small cell lung cancer

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Authors: Cristian P. Topa, Esteban A. Valencia, Victor H. Hidalgo, Marco A. Martinez

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Wind tunnel experiments for aerodynamic profiles display numerous advantages, such as: clean steady laminar flow, controlled environmental conditions, streamlines visualization, and real data acquisition. However, the experiment instrumentation usually is expensive, and hence, each test implies a incremented in design cost. The aim of this work is to select and implement a low-cost static pressure data acquisition system for a NACA 2412 airfoil in an open cycle wind tunnel. This work compares wind tunnel experiment with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation and parametric analysis. The experiment was evaluated at Reynolds of 1.65 e⁵, with increasing angles from -5° to 15°. The comparison between the approaches show good enough accuracy, between the experiment and CFD, additional parametric analysis results differ widely from the other methods, which complies with the lack of accuracy of the lateral approach due its simplicity.

Keywords: wind tunnel, low cost instrumentation, experimental testing, CFD simulation

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Authors: N. Chetty, K. Singh

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In this work, the relationship between the melanin content in a tissue and subsequent absorption of light through that tissue was determined using a digital camera. This technique proved to be simple, cost effective, efficient and reliable. Tissue phantom samples were created using milk and soy sauce to simulate the optical properties of melanin content in human tissue. Increasing the concentration of soy sauce in the milk correlated to an increase in melanin content of an individual. Two methods were employed to measure the light transmitted through the sample. The first was direct measurement of the transmitted intensity using a conventional lux meter. The second method involved correctly calibrating an ordinary digital camera and using image analysis software to calculate the transmitted intensity through the phantom. The results from these methods were then graphically compared to the theoretical relationship between the intensity of transmitted light and the concentration of absorbers in the sample. Conclusions were then drawn about the effectiveness and efficiency of these low cost methods.

Keywords: tissue phantoms, scattering coefficient, albedo, low-cost method

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Authors: Babak Masoomian, Masoud Khorrami Nejad, Hamid Riazi Esfahani

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Purpose: To report the result of strabismus surgery in eye-salvaged retinoblastoma (Rb) patients. Methods: A retrospective case series including 18 patients with Rb and strabismus who underwent strabismus surgery after completing tumor treatment by a single pediatric ophthalmologist. Results: A total of 18 patients (10 females and 8 males) were included with a mean age of 13.3 ± 3.0 (range, 2-39) months at the time tumor presentation and 6.0 ± 1.5 (range, 4-9) years at the time of strabismus surgery. Ten (56%) patients had unilateral, and 8(44%) had bilateral involvement, and the most common worse eye tumor’s group was D (n=11), C (n=4), B (n=2) and E (n=1). Macula was involved by the tumors in 12 (67%) patients. The tumors were managed by intravenous chemotherapy (n=8, 47%), intra-arterial chemotherapy (n=7, 41%) and both (n=3, 17%). After complete treatment, the average time to strabismus surgery was 29.9 ± 20.5 (range, 12-84) months. Except for one, visual acuity was equal or less than 1.0 logMAR (≤ 20/200) in the affected eye. Seven (39%) patients had exotropia, 11(61%) had esotropia (P=0.346) and vertical deviation was found in 8 (48%) cases. The angle of deviation was 42.0 ± 10.4 (range, 30-60) prism diopter (PD) for esotropic and 35.7± 7.9 (range, 25-50) PD for exotropic patients (P=0.32) that after surgery significantly decreased to 8.5 ± 5.3 PD in esotropic cases and 5.9±6.7 PD in exotropic cases (P<0.001). The mean follow-up after surgery was 15.2 ± 2.0 (range, 10-24) months, in which 3 (17%) patients needed a second surgery. Conclusion: Strabismus surgery in treated Rb is safe, and results of the surgeries are acceptable and close to the general population. There was not associated with tumor recurrence or metastasis.

Keywords: retinoblastoma, strabismus, chemotherapy, surgery

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Authors: Tony Rizk

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Recent material advances and cost efficiencies are transforming the housing industry away from traditional lumber and gypsum material to alternate fiberboard material that is workable and resistant to fire, mold, and pest infestation. The use of these materials may add to the initial cost of construction. However, the life cycle (cradle to grave) cost of houses using these construction materials and methods are lower than the life cycle costs using traditional housing construction materials and methods. This paper will present four (4) case studies of sustainable house projects. Each project was designed and constructed using earthen-based, sustainable fiberboard material that is resistant to fire, mold, and infestation and fabricated at a very low material calorific value. These house projects have a living space ranging from 625 sq. ft. for an accessory dwelling unit and up to 3,200 sq. ft. 1-story and 2-story homes. For each case study, we will present the house engineering design and construction method, the initial construction costs, a summary of the life cycle costs, and a comparison to the life cycle cost of traditional housing available in the literature.

Keywords: residential housing, sustainable housing, life cycle cost, fire resistance, mold, infestation resistance

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Authors: Kaddi Mohammed, A. Benatiallah, D. Benatiallah

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Data grid is a technology that has full emergence of new challenges, such as the heterogeneity and availability of various resources and geographically distributed, fast data access, minimizing latency and fault tolerance. Researchers interested in this technology address the problems of the various systems related to the industry such as task scheduling, load balancing and replication. The latter is an effective solution to achieve good performance in terms of data access and grid resources and better availability of data cost. In a system with duplication, a coherence protocol is used to impose some degree of synchronization between the various copies and impose some order on updates. In this project, we present an approach for placing replicas to minimize the cost of response of requests to read or write, and we implement our model in a simulation environment. The placement techniques are based on a cost model which depends on several factors, such as bandwidth, data size and storage nodes.

Keywords: response time, query, consistency, bandwidth, storage capacity, CERN

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Authors: Helen S. Ghali, Haidy S. Ghali, Salma Ibrahim, Ossama Hosny, Hatem S. Elbehairy

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Infrastructure systems are essential assets in any community; accordingly, authorities aim to maximize its life span while minimizing the life cycle cost. This requires studying the asset conditions throughout its operation and forming a cost-efficient maintenance strategy plan. The objective of this study is to develop a highway management system that provides medium-term maintenance plans with the minimum life cycle cost subject to budget constraints. The model is applied to data collected for the highway network in India with the aim to output a 5-year maintenance plan strategy from 2019 till 2023. The main element considered is the surface coarse, either rigid or flexible pavement. The model outputs a 5-year maintenance plan for each segment given the budget constraint while maximizing the new pavement condition rating and minimizing its life cycle cost.

Keywords: infrastructure, asset management, optimization, maintenance plan

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Authors: Somruedee Pongsena

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The purpose of this study is to follow up on the graduated students of Bachelor of Science in Applied Statistics from Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University (SSRU) during the 1999 – 2012 academic years and to provide the fundamental guideline for developing the current curriculum according to Thai Qualifications Framework for Higher Education (TQF: HEd). The sample was collected from 75 graduates by interview and online questionnaire. The content covered 5 subjects: ethics and moral, knowledge, cognitive skills, interpersonal skills and responsibility, numerical analysis as well as communication and information technology skills. Data were analyzed by using statistical methods as percentiles, means, standard deviation, t-tests, and F-tests. The findings showed that samples were mostly females younger than 26 years old. The majority of graduates had income in the range of 10,001-20,000 Baht and their experience range was 2-5 years. In addition, overall opinions from receiving knowledge to apply to work were at agree; mean score was 3.97 and standard deviation was 0.40. In terms of opinion difference, the hypothesis' testing results indicate gender only had different opinion at a significant level of 0.05.

Keywords: follow-up, graduates, knowledge, opinion, work performance.

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Authors: Vibha Devi, Shabina Khanam

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Hemp (Cannabis sativa) possesses a rich content of ω-6 linoleic and ω-3 linolenic essential fatty acid in the ratio of 3:1, which is a rare and most desired ratio that enhances the quality of hemp oil. These components are beneficial for the development of cell and body growth, strengthen the immune system, possess anti-inflammatory action, lowering the risk of heart problem owing to its anti-clotting property and a remedy for arthritis and various disorders. The present study employs supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) approach on hemp seed at various conditions of parameters; temperature (40 - 80) °C, pressure (200 - 350) bar, flow rate (5 - 15) g/min, particle size (0.430 - 1.015) mm and amount of co-solvent (0 - 10) % of solvent flow rate through central composite design (CCD). CCD suggested 32 sets of experiments, which was carried out. As SFE process includes large number of variables, the present study recommends the application of resampling techniques for cross-validation of the obtained data. Cross-validation refits the model on each data to achieve the information regarding the error, variability, deviation etc. Bootstrap and jackknife are the most popular resampling techniques, which create a large number of data through resampling from the original dataset and analyze these data to check the validity of the obtained data. Jackknife resampling is based on the eliminating one observation from the original sample of size N without replacement. For jackknife resampling, the sample size is 31 (eliminating one observation), which is repeated by 32 times. Bootstrap is the frequently used statistical approach for estimating the sampling distribution of an estimator by resampling with replacement from the original sample. For bootstrap resampling, the sample size is 32, which was repeated by 100 times. Estimands for these resampling techniques are considered as mean, standard deviation, variation coefficient and standard error of the mean. For ω-6 linoleic acid concentration, mean value was approx. 58.5 for both resampling methods, which is the average (central value) of the sample mean of all data points. Similarly, for ω-3 linoleic acid concentration, mean was observed as 22.5 through both resampling. Variance exhibits the spread out of the data from its mean. Greater value of variance exhibits the large range of output data, which is 18 for ω-6 linoleic acid (ranging from 48.85 to 63.66 %) and 6 for ω-3 linoleic acid (ranging from 16.71 to 26.2 %). Further, low value of standard deviation (approx. 1 %), low standard error of the mean (< 0.8) and low variance coefficient (< 0.2) reflect the accuracy of the sample for prediction. All the estimator value of variance coefficients, standard deviation and standard error of the mean are found within the 95 % of confidence interval.

Keywords: resampling, supercritical fluid extraction, hemp oil, cross-validation

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Authors: I. Nazari, B. Shaabani, P. Abaasifar

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In small quantities certain heavy metals are nutritionally essential for a healthy life. The heavy metals linked most often to human poisoning are lead, mercury, arsenic, and cadmium. Other heavy metals including copper, zinc and chromium are actually required by the body in small quantity but can also be toxic in large doses. Nowadays, we have contamination to this heavy metals in some untreated industrial waste waters and even in several populated cities drinking waters around the world. The contamination of ground and underground water sources to heavy metals can be concentrated and travel up to food chain by drinking water and agricultural products. In recent years, the need for safe and economical methods for removal of heavy metals from contaminated water has necessitated research interest towards the finding low-cost alternatives. Bio-adsorbents have emerged as low-cost and efficient materials for the removal of heavy metals from waste and ground waters. The bio-adsorbents have an affinity for heavy metals ions to form metal complexes or chelates due to having functional groups including carboxyl, hydroxyl, imidazole, and etc. The objective of this study is to review researches in less expensive adsorbents and their utilization possibilities for various low-cost bio-adsorbents such as coffee beans, rice husk, and saw dust for the removal of heavy metals from contaminated waters.

Keywords: heavy metals, water pollution, bio-adsorbents, low cost adsorbents

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Authors: Shahadat Uddin, Md Ekramul Hossain, Arif Khan

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The collaboration among physicians during episodes of care for a hospitalised patient has a significant contribution towards effective health outcome. This research aims at improving this health outcome by analysing the attributes of patient-sharing physician collaboration network (PCN) on hospital data. To accomplish this goal, we present a research framework that explores the impact of several types of attributes (such as clique and clan) of PCN on hospitalisation cost and hospital length of stay. We use electronic health insurance claim dataset to construct and explore PCNs. Each PCN is categorised as ‘low’ and ‘high’ in terms of hospitalisation cost and length of stay. The results from the proposed model show that the clique and clan of PCNs affect the hospitalisation cost and length of stay. The clique and clan of PCNs show the difference between ‘low’ and ‘high’ PCNs in terms of hospitalisation cost and length of stay. The findings and insights from this research can potentially help the healthcare stakeholders to better formulate the policy in order to improve quality of care while reducing cost.

Keywords: clique, clan, electronic health records, physician collaboration

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Authors: Rahul Srivastava, Priti Pundir, Y. R. Sood, Rajnish Shrivastava

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For the interpretation of the signatures of sweep frequency response analysis(SFRA) of transformer different types of statistical techniques serves as an effective tool for doing either phase to phase comparison or sister unit comparison. In this paper with the discussion on SFRA several statistics techniques like cross correlation coefficient (CCF), root square error (RSQ), comparative standard deviation (CSD), Absolute difference, mean square error(MSE),Min-Max ratio(MM) are presented through several case studies. These methods require sample data size and spot frequencies of SFRA signatures that are being compared. The techniques used are based on power signal processing tools that can simplify result and limits can be created for the severity of the fault occurring in the transformer due to several short circuit forces or due to ageing. The advantages of using statistics techniques for analyzing of SFRA result are being indicated through several case studies and hence the results are obtained which determines the state of the transformer.

Keywords: absolute difference (DABS), cross correlation coefficient (CCF), mean square error (MSE), min-max ratio (MM-ratio), root square error (RSQ), standard deviation (CSD), sweep frequency response analysis (SFRA)

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Authors: Sara Rankohi, Lloyd Waugh

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Construction sites are information saturated. Digitalization is hitting construction sites to meet the incredible demand of knowledge sharing and information documentations. From flying drones, 3D Lasers scanners, pocket mobile applications, to augmented reality glasses and smart helmet, visualization technologies help real-time information imposed straight onto construction professional’s field of vision. Although these technologies are very applicable and can have the direct impact on project cost and productivity, experience shows that only a minority of construction professionals quickly adapt themselves to benefit from them in practice. The majority of construction managers still tend to apply traditional construction management methods. This paper investigates a) current applications of visualization technologies in construction projects management, b) the direct effect of these technologies on productivity improvement and cost saving of a multi-residential building project via a case study on Mac Taggart Senior Care project located in Edmonton, Alberta. The research shows the imaged based technologies have a direct impact on improving project productivity and cost savings.

Keywords: image-based technologies, project management, cost, productivity improvement

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Authors: Armando Cartenì, Ilaria Henke

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Recently, the Italian government has approved a new law for public contracts and has been laying the groundwork for restarting a planning phase. The government has adopted the indications given by the European Commission regarding the estimation of the external costs within the Cost-Benefit Analysis, and has been approved the ‘Guidelines for assessment of Investment Projects’. In compliance with the new Italian law, the aim of this research was to perform a feasibility study applying quantitative methods regarding the revamping of an Italian tourist railway line. A Cost-Benefit Analysis was performed starting from the quantification of the passengers’ demand potentially interested in using the revamped rail services. The benefits due to the external costs reduction were also estimated (quantified) in terms of variations (with respect to the not project scenario): climate change, air pollution, noises, congestion, and accidents. Estimations results have been proposed in terms of the Measure of Effectiveness underlying a positive Net Present Value equal to about 27 million of Euros, an Internal Rate of Return much greater the discount rate, a benefit/cost ratio equal to 2 and a PayBack Period of 15 years.

Keywords: cost-benefit analysis, evaluation analysis, demand management, external cost, transport planning, quality

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Authors: Abdullah Kaya, Muammer Koc

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A levelized cost analysis of solar energy powered seawater desalination in The Emirate of Abu Dhabi is conducted to show that clean and renewable desalination is economically viable. The Emirate heavily relies on seawater desalination for its freshwater needs due to limited freshwater resources available. This trend is expected to increase further due to growing population and economic activity, rapid decline in limited freshwater reserves, and aggravating effects of climate change. Seawater desalination in Abu Dhabi is currently done through thermal desalination technologies such as multi-stage flash (MSF) and multi-effect distillation (MED) which are coupled with thermal power plants known as co-generation. Our analysis indicates that these thermal desalination methods are inefficient regarding energy consumption and harmful to the environment due to CO₂ emissions and other dangerous byproducts. Therefore, utilization of clean and renewable desalination options has become a must for The Emirate for the transition to a sustainable future. The rapid decline in the cost of solar PV system for energy production and RO technology for desalination makes the combination of these two an ideal option for a future of sustainable desalination in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. A Levelized cost analysis for water produced by solar PV + RO system indicates that Abu Dhabi is well positioned to utilize this technological combination for cheap and clean desalination for the coming years. It has been shown that cap-ex cost of solar PV powered RO system has potential to go as low as to 101 million US $ (1111 $/m³) at best case considering the recent technological developments. The levelized cost of water (LCW) values fluctuate between 0.34 $/m³ for the baseline case and 0.27 $/m³ for the best case. Even the highly conservative case yields LCW cheaper than 100% from all thermal desalination methods currently employed in the Emirate. Exponential cost decreases in both solar PV and RO sectors along with increasing economic scale globally signal the fact that a cheap and clean desalination can be achieved by the combination of these technologies.

Keywords: solar PV, RO desalination, sustainable desalination, levelized cost of analysis, Emirate of Abu Dhabi

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Authors: Hossein Havaeji, Tony Wong, Thien-My Dao

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1. Research Problems and Research Objectives: Blockchain Technology-enabled Supply Chain System (BT-enabled SCS) is the system using BT to drive SCS transparency, security, durability, and process integrity as SCS data is not always visible, available, or trusted. The costs of operating BT in the SCS are a common problem in several organizations. The costs must be estimated as they can impact existing cost control strategies. To account for system and deployment costs, it is necessary to overcome the following hurdle. The problem is that the costs of developing and running a BT in SCS are not yet clear in most cases. Many industries aiming to use BT have special attention to the importance of BT installation cost which has a direct impact on the total costs of SCS. Predicting BT installation cost in SCS may help managers decide whether BT is to be an economic advantage. The purpose of the research is to identify some main BT installation cost components in SCS needed for deeper cost analysis. We then identify and categorize the main groups of cost components in more detail to utilize them in the prediction process. The second objective is to determine the suitable Supervised Learning technique in order to predict the costs of developing and running BT in SCS in a particular case study. The last aim is to investigate how the running BT cost can be involved in the total cost of SCS. 2. Work Performed: Applied successfully in various fields, Supervised Learning is a method to set the data frame, treat the data, and train/practice the method sort. It is a learning model directed to make predictions of an outcome measurement based on a set of unforeseen input data. The following steps must be conducted to search for the objectives of our subject. The first step is to make a literature review to identify the different cost components of BT installation in SCS. Based on the literature review, we should choose some Supervised Learning methods which are suitable for BT installation cost prediction in SCS. According to the literature review, some Supervised Learning algorithms which provide us with a powerful tool to classify BT installation components and predict BT installation cost are the Support Vector Regression (SVR) algorithm, Back Propagation (BP) neural network, and Artificial Neural Network (ANN). Choosing a case study to feed data into the models comes into the third step. Finally, we will propose the best predictive performance to find the minimum BT installation costs in SCS. 3. Expected Results and Conclusion: This study tends to propose a cost prediction of BT installation in SCS with the help of Supervised Learning algorithms. At first attempt, we will select a case study in the field of BT-enabled SCS, and then use some Supervised Learning algorithms to predict BT installation cost in SCS. We continue to find the best predictive performance for developing and running BT in SCS. Finally, the paper will be presented at the conference.

Keywords: blockchain technology, blockchain technology-enabled supply chain system, installation cost, supervised learning

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Authors: Tarcisio F. Leao, Bruno Utiyama, Jeison Fonseca, Eduardo Bock, Aron Andrade

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This work presents a blood flow estimator based in Look-Up-Table (LUT) for control of Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD). This device has been used as bridge to transplantation or as destination therapy to treat patients with heart failure (HF). Destination Therapy application requires a high performance LVAD; thus, a stable control is important to keep adequate interaction between heart and device. LVAD control provides an adequate cardiac output while sustaining an appropriate flow and pressure blood perfusion, also described as physiologic control. Because thrombus formation and system reliability reduction, sensors are not desirable to measure these variables (flow and pressure blood). To achieve this, control systems have been researched to estimate blood flow. LVAD used in the study is composed by blood centrifugal pump, control, and power supply. This technique used pump and actuator (motor) parameters of LVAD, such as speed and electric current. Estimator relates electromechanical torque (motor or actuator) and hydraulic power (blood pump) via LUT. An in vitro Mock Loop was used to evaluate deviations between blood flow estimated and actual. A solution with glycerin (50%) and water was used to simulate the blood viscosity with hematocrit 45%. Tests were carried out with variation hematocrit: 25%, 45% and 58% of hematocrit, or 40%, 50% and 60% of glycerin in water solution, respectively. Test with bovine blood was carried out (42% hematocrit). Mock Loop is composed: reservoir, tubes, pressure and flow sensors, and fluid (or blood), beyond LVAD. Estimator based in LUT is patented, number BR1020160068363, in Brazil. Mean deviation is 0.23 ± 0.07 L/min for mean flow estimated. Larger mean deviation was 0.5 L/min considering hematocrit variation. This estimator achieved deviation adequate for physiologic control implementation. Future works will evaluate flow estimation performance in control system of LVAD.

Keywords: blood pump, flow estimator, left ventricular assist device, look-up-table

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Authors: Daniel Hyun

Abstract:

Dental implants are one of the top 3 reasons to sue a dentist for malpractice. It involves dental implant complications, usually because of the angle of the implant from the surgery. At present, surgeons usually use a 3D-printed navigator that is customized for the patient’s teeth. However, those can’t be reused for other patients as they require time. Therefore, I made a guiding device to assist the surgeon in implant operations. The surgeon can input the objective of the operation, and the device constantly checks if the surgery is heading towards the objective within the set range, telling the surgeon by manipulating the LED. We tested the prototypes’ consistency and accuracy by checking the graph, average standard deviation, and the average change of the calculated angles. The accuracy of performance was also acquired by running the device and checking the outputs. My first prototype used accelerometer and gyroscope sensors from the Arduino MPU6050 sensor, getting a changeable graph, achieving 0.0295 of standard deviations, 0.25 of average change, and 66.6% accuracy of performance. The second prototype used only the gyroscope, and it got a constant graph, achieved 0.0062 of standard deviation, 0.075 of average change, and 100% accuracy of performance, indicating that the accelerometer sensor aggravated the functionality of the device. Using the gyroscope sensor allowed it to measure the orientations of separate axes without affecting each other and also increased the stability and accuracy of the measurements.

Keywords: implant, guide, accelerometer, gyroscope, handpiece

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Authors: Tokihiko Akita, Seiichi Mita

Abstract:

A millimeter-wave radar is the most robust against adverse environments, making it an essential environment recognition sensor for automated driving. However, the reflection signal is sparse and unstable, so it is difficult to obtain the high recognition accuracy. Deep learning provides high accuracy even for them in recognition, but requires large scale datasets with ground truth. Specially, it takes a lot of cost to annotate for a millimeter-wave radar. For the solution, utilizing a simulator that can generate an annotated huge dataset is effective. Simulation of the radar is more difficult to match with real world data than camera image, and recognition by deep learning with higher-order features using the simulator causes further deviation. We have challenged to improve the accuracy of traffic participant classification by fusing simulator and real-world data with domain adaptation technique. Experimental results with the domain adaptation network created by us show that classification accuracy can be improved even with a few real-world data.

Keywords: millimeter-wave radar, object classification, deep learning, simulation, domain adaptation

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Authors: Frank Aneke, Elizabeth Theron

Abstract:

Demand for building materials in the last decade due to growing population, has caused scarcity of low-cost housing in South Africa. The investigation thoroughly examined dolomitic waste (DW), silica fume (SF) and River sand (RS) effects on the geotechnical behaviour of fly ash bricks. Bricks samples were prepared at different ratios as follows: I. FA1 contained FA70% + RS30%, II. FA2 contained FA60% + DW10%+RS30%, III. FA3 has a mix proportion of FA50% + DW20%+RS30%, IV. FA4 has a mix ratio FA40% + DW30%+RS30%, V. FA5 contained FA20% + DW40% + SF10%+RS30% by mass percentage of the FA material. However, utilization of this wastes in production of bricks, does not only produce a valuable commercial product that is cost effective, but also reduces a major waste disposal problem from the surrounding environment.

Keywords: bricks, dolomite, fly ash, industrial wastes

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Authors: Henry Lau, Dilupa Nakandala, Li Zhao

Abstract:

All along the length of the supply chain, fresh food firms face the challenge of managing both product quality, due to the perishable nature of the products, and product cost. This paper develops a method to assist logistics managers upstream in the fresh food supply chain in making cost optimized decisions regarding transportation, with the objective of minimizing the total cost while maintaining the quality of food products above acceptable levels. Considering the case of multiple fresh food products collected from multiple farms being transported to a warehouse or a retailer, this study develops a total cost model that includes various costs incurred during transportation. The practical application of the model is illustrated by using several computational intelligence approaches including Genetic Algorithms (GA), Fuzzy Genetic Algorithms (FGA) as well as an improved Simulated Annealing (SA) procedure applied with a repair mechanism for efficiency benchmarking. We demonstrate the practical viability of these approaches by using a simulation study based on pertinent data and evaluate the simulation outcomes. The application of the proposed total cost model was demonstrated using three approaches of GA, FGA and SA with a repair mechanism. All three approaches are adoptable; however, based on the performance evaluation, it was evident that the FGA is more likely to produce a better performance than the other two approaches of GA and SA. This study provides a pragmatic approach for supporting logistics and supply chain practitioners in fresh food industry in making important decisions on the arrangements and procedures related to the transportation of multiple fresh food products to a warehouse from multiple farms in a cost-effective way without compromising product quality. This study extends the literature on cold supply chain management by investigating cost and quality optimization in a multi-product scenario from farms to a retailer and, minimizing cost by managing the quality above expected quality levels at delivery. The scalability of the proposed generic function enables the application to alternative situations in practice such as different storage environments and transportation conditions.

Keywords: cost optimization, food supply chain, fuzzy sets, genetic algorithms, product quality, transportation

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Authors: K. -H. Yang

Abstract:

Supplier selection problem is one of the important issues of supply chain problems. Two categories of methodologies include qualitative and quantitative approaches which can be applied to supplier selection problems. However, due to the complexities of the problem and lacking of reliable and quantitative data, qualitative approaches are more than quantitative approaches. This study considers operational cost and supplier’s reliability factor and solves the problem by using a quantitative approach. A mixed integer programming model is the primary analytic tool. Analyses of different scenarios with variable cost and reliability structures show that the effectiveness of this approach to the supplier selection problem.

Keywords: mixed integer programming, quantitative approach, supplier’s reliability, supplier selection

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Authors: Saurabh Gupta, Vanshdeep Parmar, Sri Harsha Reddy Yelly, Michele Baker, Elizabeth Bigler, Kunhee Choi

Abstract:

It is known that the adoption of solar powered LED highway lighting systems or sensory LED highway lighting systems can dramatically reduce energy consumption by 55 percent when compared to conventional on-grid High Pressure Sodium (HPS) lamps that are widely applied to most highways. However, an initial high installation cost for building the infrastructure of solar photovoltaic devices hampers a wider adoption of such technologies. This research aims to examine currently available state-of-the-art solar photovoltaic and sensory technologies, identify major obstacles, and analyze each technology to create a benchmarking metrics from the benefit-cost analysis perspective. The on-grid HPS lighting systems will serve as the baseline for this study to compare it with other lighting alternatives such as solar and sensory LED lighting systems. This research will test the validity of the research hypothesis that alternative LED lighting systems produce more favorable benefit-cost ratios and the added initial investment costs are recouped by the savings in the operation and maintenance cost. The payback period of the excess investment and projected savings over the life-cycle of the selected lighting systems will be analyzed by utilizing the concept of Net Present Value (NPV). Researchers believe that if this study validates the research hypothesis, it can promote a wider adoption of alternative lighting systems that will eventually save millions of taxpayer dollars in the long-run.

Keywords: lighting systems, sensory and solar PV, benefit cost analysis, net present value

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Authors: Roman Asatryan

Abstract:

The decision-making processes in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) among firms in general and airlines in particular have to do with the benefits that accrue through those investments. The crux of the matter is not whether to invest in CSR or not, but rather, how firms can quantify the benefits derived from such investments. This paper analyzes the cost benefit adjustment strategies for firms in the airline industry in their CSR strategy adoption and implementation. The adjustment strategies identified will enable firms in the airline industry to have a basis for determining the worth of such CSR investments. This paper discusses the cost and benefit analysis model in order to understand the ways airlines can reduce costs and increase returns on CSR, or balance the cost and benefits. The analysis from this study points to the fact that economic concepts especially the CBA are useful, though they are not without challenges. The challenge arises when it is problematic to express the real impact of the externality in monetary terms. The use of rational maximization of the gains may seem to be a rather optimistic goal mainly because of environmental variability, perceptual uncertainty, and imperfect knowledge about the potential externality. This paper concludes that the CBA model gives a basic understanding of the motivations for investing in intangible assets like CSR. Consequently, it sets the tone for formulating relevant hypothesis in empirical studies in investment in CSR in particular and other intangible assets in business operations.

Keywords: cost-benefit analysis, corporate social responsibility, airline industry

Procedia PDF Downloads 363