Search results for: production cost

Authors: David Calderon Villegas, Thomas Kaltizky

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Run-of-river (RoR) hydropower projects represent a viable, clean, and cost-effective alternative to dam-based plants and provide decentralized power production. However, RoR schemes cost-effectiveness depends on the proper selection of site and design flow, which is a challenging task because it requires multivariate analysis. In this respect, this study presents the development of an investment decision support tool for assessing the optimal size of an RoR scheme considering the technical, environmental, and cost constraints. The net present value (NPV) from a project perspective is used as an objective function for supporting the investment decision. The tool has been tested by applying it to an actual RoR project recently proposed in Colombia. The obtained results show that the optimum point in financial terms does not match the flow that maximizes energy generation from exploiting the river's available flow. For the case study, the flow that maximizes energy corresponds to a value of 5.1 m3/s. In comparison, an amount of 2.1 m3/s maximizes the investors NPV. Finally, a sensitivity analysis is performed to determine the NPV as a function of the debt rate changes and the electricity prices and the CapEx. Even for the worst-case scenario, the optimal size represents a positive business case with an NPV of 2.2 USD million and an IRR 1.5 times higher than the discount rate.

Keywords: small hydropower, renewable energy, RoR schemes, optimal sizing, objective function

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Authors: Nasiruddin Khan

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The action of (-)-epicatechin, a cocoa (Theobroma cacao) flavanol that modulates redox/oxidative stress are contributed mainly to their antioxidant properties. The present study investigates the concentration and time dependent effect of (-)-epicatechin metabolites 3MeEc, 4MeEc, and 4SulEc on the production of ROS on BAEC using L-012, Lucigenin as chemiluminescence dye and XO/HX system. Our result demonstrates that 3MeEc shows significant (P <0.05) lowering effect of ROS production in BAEC with increasing concentration of metabolite while L-012 was used as chemiluminescence dye but not in the case of Lucigenin. In XO/HX system, using L-012 as chemiluminescence dye, 3MeEc and 4MeEc showed significant lowering effect on ROS production with increasing concentration from 100-500nM as compared to the positive control (SOD). When Lucigenin was used as chemiluminescence dye, 3MeEc exerted significant lowering effect with increasing concentration when compared to the positive control (SOD) whereas 4MeEc showed significant lowering effect in ROS production from 250 nM on as compared to positive control. For 4SulEc, a significant lowering effect of ROS production was only observed at 100 and 250 nM. Overall, although each metabolite shows considerable effect, 3MeEc exhibited more pronounced effect on decreasing the production of ROS as compared to other two metabolites.

Keywords: epicatechin metabolites, HO-1, Nrf2, ROS

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Authors: Sarah Majid Ansari, Serjosha Wulf, Matthias Goerke

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In times of global warming and the increasing shortage of resources, sustainable production is becoming more and more inevitable. Companies cannot only heighten their competitiveness but also contribute positively to environmental protection through efficient energy and resource consumption. Regarding this, technical solutions are often preferred during production, although organizational and process-related approaches also offer great potential. This project focuses on reducing resource usage, with a special emphasis on the human factor. It is the aspiration to develop a methodology that systematically implements and embeds suitable and individual measures and methods regarding resource efficiency throughout the entire production. The measures and methods established help employees handle resources and energy more sensitively. With this in mind, this paper also deals with the difficulties that can occur during the sensitization of employees and the implementation of these measures and methods. In addition, recommendations are given on how to avoid such difficulties.

Keywords: implementation, human factors, production plants, resource efficiency

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Authors: Armin Shirbazo, Hamed Lamei Ramandi, Mohammad Vahab, Jalal Fahimpour

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Hydraulic fracturing, especially multi-stage hydraulic fracturing, is a practical solution for wells with uneconomic production. The wide range of applications is appraised appropriately to have a stable well-production. Production logging tool, which is known as PLT in the oil and gas industry, is counted as one of the most reliable methods to evaluate the efficiency of fractures jobs. This tool has a number of benefits and can be used to prevent subsequent production failure. It also distinguishes different problems that occurred during well-production. In this study, the effectiveness of hydraulic fracturing jobs is examined by using the PLT in various cases and situations. The performance of hydraulically fractured wells is investigated. Then, the PLT is employed to gives more information about the properties of different layers. The PLT is also used to selecting an optimum fracturing design. The results show that one fracture and three-stage fractures behave differently. In general, the one-stage fracture should be created in high-quality areas of the reservoir to have better performance, and conversely, in three-stage fractures, low-quality areas are a better candidate for fracturing

Keywords: multi-stage fracturing, horizontal well, PLT, fracture length, number of stages

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Authors: Fayiz Saifurahman, Noori Fida Mohammad

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Afghanistan produces the highest rate of wheat, it is the first source of food, and food security in Afghanistan is dependent on the availability of wheat. Although Afghanistan is the main producer of wheat, on the other hand, Afghanistan is the largest importers of flour. The objective of this study is to assess the structure and dynamics of the wheat market in Afghanistan, can compute with foreign markets, and increase the level of production. To complete this, a broad series of secondary data was complied with, group discussions and interviews with farmers, agricultural and market experts. The research findings propose that; the government should adopt different policies to support the local market. The government should distribute the seed, support financially and technically to increase wheat production.

Keywords: Afghanistan, wheat, production , import

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Authors: Yu Zhang, Kohei Inoue, Kiichi Urahama

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We propose a simplified bilateral filter with binarized coefficients for accelerating it. Its computational cost is further decreased by sampling pixels. This computationally low cost filter is useful for smoothing or denoising images by using mobile devices with limited computational power.

Keywords: bilateral filter, binarized-weight bilateral filter, image smoothing, image denoising, pixel sampling

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Authors: Cornelius Michael Ekenta

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The study determined institutional and technological factors that influence the adoption of tenera oil palm production practices with a gender dimension among smallholder farmers in Edo State, Nigeria. Primary data were generated with use of questionnaire administered to 155 males and 137 female respondents. Results show that the level of adoption of tenera oil palm production practices was low for both male and females. Tobi regression result shows that land ownership structure and affordability at 1% significance influenced male adoption of tenera oil palm production practices while age and level of income at 1% significance influenced female in the adoption. The major roles of male as reported in adopting process were purchase of seedlings, clearing of bush for planting and selling of cut bunches while the major roles of female were periodic weeding, gathering of cut bunches and mulching of palm field. The major constraint faced by male in adoption process were high cost of labour while for females is drudgery nature of the work. The study recommended that the Land Use Act of 1978 should be enforced to help women and non-indigenes to have sizeable farm lands, Government should empower Agricultural Development Programme (ADP) by employing more extension personnel to increase their contacts with the farmers.

Keywords: gender, adoption, variety, oil, tenera, Edo

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Authors: Lattari Samir

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The performance of a production process is the result of proper operation where the management tools appear as the key to success through process management which consists of managing and implementing a quality policy, organizing and planning the manufacturing, and thus defining an efficient logic as the main areas covered by production management. To carry out this delicate mission, which requires reconciling often contradictory objectives, the auditor is called upon, who must be able to express an opinion on the effectiveness of the operation of the "production" function. To do this, the auditor must structure his mission in three phases, namely, the preparation phase to assimilate the particularities of this function, the implementation phase and the conclusion phase. The audit is a systematic and independent examination of all the stages of a manufacturing process intended to determine whether the pre-established arrangements for the combination of production factors are respected, whether their implementation is effective and whether they are relevant in relation to the goals.

Keywords: audit, performance of process, independent examination, management tools, audit of accounts

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Authors: Mayada Attia Ibrahim

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Evaluating and developing the electroplating production process is a key challenge in this type of process. The process is influenced by several factors such as process parameters, process costs, and production environments. Analyzing and optimizing all these factors together requires extensive analytical techniques that are not available in real-case industrial entities. This paper presents a practice-based framework for the evaluation and optimization of some of the crucial factors that affect the costs and production times associated with this type of process, energy costs, material costs, and product flow times. The proposed approach uses Design of Experiments, Discrete-Event Simulation, and Theory of Constraints were respectively used to identify the most significant factors affecting the production process and simulate a real production line to recognize the effect of these factors and assign possible bottlenecks. Several scenarios are generated as corrective strategies for improving the production line. Following that, data envelopment analysis CCR input-oriented DEA model is used to evaluate and optimize the suggested scenarios.

Keywords: electroplating process, simulation, design of experiment, performance optimization, theory of constraints, data envelopment analysis

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Authors: Laura Mejias, Sandra Monteagudo, Oscar Martinez-Avila, Sergio Ponsa

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Bioplastics are gaining attention as potential substitutes of conventional fossil-derived plastics and new components of specialized applications in different industries. Besides, these constitute a sustainable alternative since they are biodegradable and can be obtained starting from renewable sources. Thus, agro-industrial wastes appear as potential substrates for bioplastics production using microorganisms, considering they are a suitable source for nutrients, low-cost, and available worldwide. Therefore, this approach contributes to the biorefinery and circular economy paradigm. The present study assesses the solid-state fermentation (SSF) technology for the co-synthesis of exopolysaccharides (EPS) and polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA), two attractive biodegradable bioplastics, using the leftover of the brewery industry brewer's spent grain (BSG). After an initial screening of diverse PHA-producer bacteria, it was found that Burkholderia cepacia presented the highest EPS and PHA production potential via SSF of BSG. Thus, B. cepacia served to identify the most relevant aspects affecting the EPS+PHA co-synthesis at a lab-scale (100g). Since these are growth-dependent processes, they were monitored online through oxygen consumption using a dynamic respirometric system, but also quantifying the biomass production (gravimetric) and the obtained products (EtOH precipitation for EPS and solid-liquid extraction coupled with GC-FID for PHA). Results showed that B. cepacia has grown up to 81 mg per gram of dry BSG (gDM) at 30°C after 96 h, representing up to 618 times higher than the other tested strains' findings. Hence, the crude EPS production was 53 mg g-1DM (2% carbohydrates), but purity reached 98% after a dialysis purification step. Simultaneously, B. cepacia accumulated up to 36% (dry basis) of the produced biomass as PHA, mainly composed of polyhydroxybutyrate (P3HB). The maximum PHA production was reached after 48 h with 12.1 mg g⁻¹DM, representing threefold the levels previously reported using SSF. Moisture content and aeration strategy resulted in the most significant variables affecting the simultaneous production. Results show the potential of co-synthesis via SSF as an attractive alternative to enhance bioprocess feasibility for obtaining these bioplastics in residue-based systems.

Keywords: bioplastics, brewer’s spent grain, circular economy, solid-state fermentation, waste to product

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Authors: N. Chérif, T. Allaoui, M. Benasla, H. Chaib

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Industrialization and population growth are the prime factors for which the consumption of electricity is steadily increasing. Thus, to have a balance between production and consumption, it is necessary at first to increase the number of power plants, lines and transformers, which implies an increase in cost and environmental degradation. As a result, it is now important to have mesh networks and working close to the limits of stability in order to meet these new requirements. The transient stability studies involve large disturbances such as short circuits, loss of work or production group. The consequence of these defects can be very serious, and can even lead to the complete collapse of the network. This work focuses on the regulation means that networks can help to keep their stability when submitted to strong disturbances. The magnetic energy storage-based superconductor (SMES) comprises a superconducting coil short-circuited on it self. When such a system is connected to a power grid is able to inject or absorb the active and reactive power. This system can be used to improve the stability of power systems.

Keywords: short-circuit, power oscillations, multiband PSS, power system, SMES, transient stability

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Authors: Qiuxiao Chen, Yan Hou, Ning Wu

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As there are deficiencies of the classic Douglas-Peucker Algorithm (DPA), such as high risks of deleting key nodes by mistake, high complexity, time consumption and relatively slow execution speed, a new Deletion-Cost Based Compression Algorithm (DCA) for linear vector data was proposed. For each curve — the basic element of linear vector data, all the deletion costs of its middle nodes were calculated, and the minimum deletion cost was compared with the pre-defined threshold. If the former was greater than or equal to the latter, all remaining nodes were reserved and the curve’s compression process was finished. Otherwise, the node with the minimal deletion cost was deleted, its two neighbors' deletion costs were updated, and the same loop on the compressed curve was repeated till the termination. By several comparative experiments using different types of linear vector data, the comparison between DPA and DCA was performed from the aspects of compression quality and computing efficiency. Experiment results showed that DCA outperformed DPA in compression accuracy and execution efficiency as well.

Keywords: Douglas-Peucker algorithm, linear vector data, compression, deletion cost

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Authors: Mohammadreza Nematollahi, Bahareh Mosadegh Sedghy, Alireza Tajbakhsh

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The last two decades have witnessed substantial attention to organic and sustainable agricultural supply chains. Motivated by real-world practices, this paper aims to address two main challenges observed in organic product supply chains: decentralized decision-making process between farmers and their retailers, and competition between organic products and their conventional counterparts. To this aim, an agricultural supply chain consisting of two farmers, a conventional farmer and an organic farmer who offers an organic version of the same product, is considered. Both farmers distribute their products through a single retailer, where there exists competition between the organic and the conventional product. The retailer, as the market leader, sets the wholesale price, and afterward, the farmers set their production quantity decisions. This paper first models the demand functions of the conventional and organic products by incorporating the effect of asymmetric brand equity, which captures the fact that consumers usually pay a premium for organic due to positive perceptions regarding their health and environmental benefits. Then, profit functions with consideration of some characteristics of organic farming, including crop yield gap and organic cost factor, are modeled. Our research also considers both economies and diseconomies of scale in farming production as well as the effects of organic subsidy paid by the government to support organic farming. This paper explores the investigated supply chain in three scenarios: decentralized, centralized, and coordinated decision-making structures. In the decentralized scenario, the conventional and organic farmers and the retailer maximize their own profits individually. In this case, the interaction between the farmers is modeled under the Bertrand competition, while analyzing the interaction between the retailer and farmers under the Stackelberg game structure. In the centralized model, the optimal production strategies are obtained from the entire supply chain perspective. Analytical models are developed to derive closed-form optimal solutions. Moreover, analytical sensitivity analyses are conducted to explore the effects of main parameters like the crop yield gap, organic cost factor, organic subsidy, and percent price premium of the organic product on the farmers’ and retailer’s optimal strategies. Afterward, a coordination scenario is proposed to convince the three supply chain members to shift from the decentralized to centralized decision-making structure. The results indicate that the proposed coordination scenario provides a win-win-win situation for all three members compared to the decentralized model. Moreover, our paper demonstrates that the coordinated model respectively increases and decreases the production and price of organic produce, which in turn motivates the consumption of organic products in the market. Moreover, the proposed coordination model helps the organic farmer better handle the challenges of organic farming, including the additional cost and crop yield gap. Last but not least, our results highlight the active role of the organic subsidy paid by the government as a means of promoting sustainable organic product supply chains. Our paper shows that although the amount of organic subsidy plays a significant role in the production and sales price of organic products, the allocation method of subsidy between the organic farmer and retailer is not of that importance.

Keywords: analytical game-theoretic model, product competition, supply chain coordination, sustainable organic supply chain

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Authors: Yu-Yao Wang, Xiao-Meng Hu, Joanne Yeung, Xiao-Yan Li

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The high private cost and unquantified external cost limit the development of reclaimed water. In this study, an integrated framework comprising life cycle assessment (LCA), quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA), and life cycle costing (LCC) was developed to evaluate both costs of reclaimed water supply in water systems of various scales. LCA assesses the environmental impacts, and QMRA estimates the associated pathogenic impacts. These impacts are monetized as external costs and analyzed with the private cost by LCC to count the total life cycle cost. The framework evaluated the Hong Kong urban water system in the baseline scenario (BS) and five wastewater reuse scenarios (RS). They are RSI: substituting freshwater for toilet flushing only, RSII: substituting both freshwater and seawater for toilet flushing, RSIII: using reclaimed water for all non-potable uses, RSIV: using reclaimed water for all non-potable uses and indirect potable uses, and RSV: non-potable use and indirect potable use by conveying 100% reclaimed water to recharge the reservoirs. The results show that substituting freshwater and seawater for toilet flushing has the least total life cycle cost, exhibiting that it is the most cost-effective option for Hong Kong. Meanwhile, the evaluation results show that the external cost of each scenario is comparable to the corresponding private cost, indicating the importance of the inclusion of comprehensive external cost evaluation in private cost assessment of water systems with reclaimed water supply.

Keywords: life cycle assessment, life cycle costing, quantitative microbial risk assessment, water reclamation, reclaimed water, alternative water resources

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Authors: Ziani Zakarya, Mahdad Moustafa Yassine

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Greenhouse farming has greatly contributed to the development of modern agriculture by optimizing crops, especially market gardening, ornamental horticulture, and recently, fruit species ... Greenhouse cultivation has enabled farmers to produce fruits and vegetables out of season while guaranteeing them a good production, and therefore a considerable gain throughout the year. However, this mode of production has shown its limits, especially in extreme conditions, such as the continental steppe climate and the Saharan climate, which are characterized by significant thermal amplitudes and strong winds, making it impossible to use conventional greenhouses for several months, of the year. In Algeria and precisely in the highlands, the use of greenhouses by farmers is very rare or occasional, especially in spring, because the limiting factors mentioned above are frequent there, causing significant damage to the plant product and to the environment. infrastructure. The same observation is observed in the Saharan regions but with less frequencies. Certainly, the use of controlled multi-chapel greenhouses would solve the problem, but at what cost? These hi-tech infrastructures are very expensive to purchase but also to maintain, so few farmers have the financial means to obtain them. In addition, the existence of intelligent and less expensive polymer films, whose properties could control greenhouse production parameters, in particular, the temperature parameter, maybe a judicious solution for the development of new generations of greenhouses that can be used in extreme conditions and normal.

Keywords: greenhouse, polymer film, modern agriculture, optimizing crops

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Authors: Lo Kar Yin, Law Ka Mei

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Architectural, engineering, construction and operations (AECO) industry practitioners have been well adapting to the dynamic construction market from the fundamental training of its discipline. As further triggered by the pandemic since 2019, great steps are taken in virtual environment and the best collaboration is strived with project teams without boundaries. With adoption of Building Information Modeling-based approach and qualitative analysis, this paper is to review quantity take-off and cost estimation process through modeling techniques in liaison with suppliers, fabricators, subcontractors, contractors, designers, consultants and services providers in the construction industry value chain for automatic project cost budgeting, project cost control and cost evaluation on design options of in-situ reinforced-concrete construction and Modular Integrated Construction (MiC) at design stage, variation of works and cash flow/spending analysis at construction stage as far as practicable, with a view to sharing the findings for enhancing mutual trust and co-operation among AECO industry practitioners. It is to foster development through a common prototype of design and build project delivery method in NEC Engineering and Construction Contract (ECC) Options A and C.

Keywords: building information modeling, cost estimation, quantity take-off, modeling techniques

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Authors: Tennah Safia, Azzag Naouelle, Derdour Salima, Hafsi Fella, Laouadi Mourad, Laamari Abdalouahab, Ghalmi Farida, Kafidi Nacerredine

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Currently, goat farming is widely practiced among the rural population of Algeria. Although milk yield of goats is low (110 liters per goat and per year on average), this milk partly ensures the feeding of small children and provides raw milk, curd, and fermented milk to the whole family. In addition, given its investment cost, which is ten times lower than that of a cow, this level of production is still of interest. This interest is reinforced by the qualities of goat's milk, highly sought after for its nutritional value superior to that of cow's milk. In the same way, its aptitude for the transformation, in particular in quality cheeses, is very sought after. The objective of this study is to give the situation of goat milk production in rural areas of Algeria and to establish a classification of goat breeds according to their production potential. For this, a survey was carried out with goat farmers in Algerian steppe. Three indigenous breeds were encountered in this study: the breed Arabia, Mozabite, and Mekatia; Arabia being the most dominant. The Mekatia breed and the Mozabite breed appear to have higher production and milking abilities than other local breeds. They are therefore indicated to play the role of local dairy breeds par excellence. The other breed that could be improved milk performance is the Arabia breed. There, however, the milk performance of this breed is low. However, in order to increase milk production, uncontrolled crosses with imported breeds (mainly Saanen and Alpine) were carried out. The third population that can be included in the category for dairy production is the dairy breed group of imported origin. There are farms in Algeria composed of Alpine and Saanen breeds born locally. Improved milk performance of local goats, Crusader population, and dairy breeds of imported origin could be done by selection. For this, it is necessary to set up a milk control to detect the best animals. This control could be carried out among interested farmers in each large goat breeding area. In conclusion, sustained efforts must be made to enable the sustainable development of the goat sector in Algeria. It will, therefore, be necessary to deepen the reflection on a national strategy to valorize goat's milk, taking into account the specificities of the environment, the genetic biodiversity, and the eating habits of the Algerian consumer.

Keywords: goat, milk, Algeria, biodiversity

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Authors: Christian Neunzig, Simon Fahle, Jürgen Schulz, Matthias Möller, Bernd Kuhlenkötter

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Manufacturing companies are facing global competition and enormous cost pressure. The use of machine learning applications can help reduce production costs and create added value. Predictive quality enables the securing of product quality through data-supported predictions using machine learning models as a basis for decisions on test results. Furthermore, machine learning methods are able to process large amounts of data, deal with unfavourable row-column ratios and detect dependencies between the covariates and the given target as well as assess the multidimensional influence of all input variables on the target. Real production data are often subject to highly fluctuating boundary conditions and unbalanced data sets. Changes in production data manifest themselves in trends, systematic shifts, and seasonal effects. Thus, Machine learning applications require intensive pre-processing and feature selection. Data preprocessing includes rule-based data cleaning, the application of dimensionality reduction techniques, and the identification of comparable data subsets. Within the used real data set of Bosch hydraulic valves, the comparability of the same production conditions in the production of hydraulic valves within certain time periods can be identified by applying the concept drift method. Furthermore, a classification model is developed to evaluate the feature importance in different subsets within the identified time periods. By selecting comparable and stable features, the number of features used can be significantly reduced without a strong decrease in predictive power. The use of cross-process production data along the value chain of hydraulic valves is a promising approach to predict the quality characteristics of workpieces. In this research, the ada boosting classifier is used to predict the leakage of hydraulic valves based on geometric gauge blocks from machining, mating data from the assembly, and hydraulic measurement data from end-of-line testing. In addition, the most suitable methods are selected and accurate quality predictions are achieved.

Keywords: classification, achine learning, predictive quality, feature selection

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Authors: Tim Nikolsky

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This paper seeks to explore the different ways in which music producers choose to embrace various levels of technology based on musical values, objectives, affordability, access and workflow benefits. Current digital audio production workflow is questioned. Engineers and music producers of today are increasingly divorced from the tangibility of music production. Making music no longer requires you to reach over and turn a knob. Ideas of authenticity in music production are being redefined. Calculations from the mathematical algorithm with the pretty pictures are increasingly being chosen over hardware containing transformers and tubes. Are mouse clicks and movements equivalent or inferior to the master brush strokes we are seeking to conjure? We are making audio production decisions visually by constantly looking at a screen rather than listening. Have we compromised our music objectives and values by removing the ‘hands-on’ nature of music making? DAW interfaces are making our musical decisions for us not necessarily in our best interests. Technological innovation has presented opportunities as well as challenges for education. What do music production students actually need to learn in a formalised education environment, and to what extent do they need to know it? In this brave new world of omnipresent music creation tools, do we still need tangibility in music production? Interviews with prominent Australian music producers that work in a variety of fields will be featured in this paper, and will provide insight in answering these questions and move towards developing an understanding how tangibility can be rediscovered in the next generation of music production.

Keywords: analogue, digital, digital audio workstation, music production, plugins, tangibility, technology, workflow

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Authors: S. Aditya, K. T. Nideesh, N. Guruprasad

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Being a subclass of linear programing problem, the Transportation Problem is a classic Operations Research problem where the objective is to determine the schedule for transporting goods from source to destination in a way that minimizes the shipping cost while satisfying supply and demand constraints. In this paper, we are representing the transportation problem for various warehouses along with various dealers situated in Bangalore city to reduce the transportation cost incurred by them as of now. The problem is solved by obtaining the Initial Basic feasible Solution through various methods and further proceeding to obtain optimal cost.

Keywords: NW method, optimum utilization, transportation problem, Vogel’s approximation method

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Authors: Diep Thanh Tung

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This study aims to measure technical efficiency and examine productivity performance of livestock production in regions of Vietnam based on a panel data of 2008–2012. After four years, although there are improvements in efficiency of some regions, low technical efficiency, poor performance of productivity and its compositions are dominant features in almost regions. Households which much depend on livestock income in agricultural income or agricultural income in total income are more vulnerable than the others in term of livestock production.

Keywords: data envelopment analysis, meta-frontier, Malmquist, technical efficiency, livestock production

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Authors: Oladimeji Adetona Adeyeye, Emmanuel Rotimi Sadiku, Oluwaseun Olayinka Adeyeye

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In order to resuscitate soybean production and post-harvest processing especially, in term of threshing, there is need to develop an affordable threshing machine which will reduce drudgery associated with manual soybean threshing. Soybean thresher was fabricated and evaluated at Institute of Agricultural Research and Training IAR&T Apata Ibadan. The machine component includes; hopper, threshing unit, shaker, cleaning unit and the seed outlet, all working together to achieve the main objective of threshing and cleaning. TGX1835 - 10E variety was used for evaluation because of its high resistance to pests, rust and pustules. The final moisture content of the used sample was about 15%. The sample was weighed and introduced into the machine. The parameters evaluated includes moisture content, threshing efficiency, cleaning efficiency, machine capacity and speed. The threshing efficiency and capacity are 74% and 65.9kg/hr respectively. All materials used were sourced locally which makes the cost of production of the machine extremely cheaper than the imported soybean thresher.

Keywords: efficiency, machine capacity, speed, soybean, threshing

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Authors: Katarzyna Mleczko

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Processes of production of innovative medical tools have interdisciplinary character. They consist of direct and indirect close cooperation of specialists of different scientific branches. The Knowledge they have seems to be important for undertaken design, construction and manufacturing processes. The Knowledge exchange between participants of these processes is therefore crucial for the final result, which are innovative medical products. The paper draws attention to the necessity of feedback from the end user to the designer / manufacturer of medical tools which will allow for more accurate understanding of user needs. The study describes prerequisites of production processes of innovative medical (surgical) tools including participants and category of knowledge resources occurring in these processes. They are the result of research in selected Polish organizations involved in the production of medical instruments and are the basis for further work on the development of knowledge sharing model in interdisciplinary teams geographically dispersed.

Keywords: interdisciplinary production processes, knowledge exchange, knowledge sharing, medical tools

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Authors: S. Šupić, M. Malešev, V. Radonjanin, M. Radeka, M. Laban

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The production of low cost and environmentally friendly products represents an important step for developing countries. Biomass is one of the largest renewable energy sources, and Serbia is among the top European countries in terms of the amount of available and unused biomass. Substituting cement with the ashes obtained by the combustion of biomass would reduce the negative impact of concrete industry on the environment and would provide a waste valorization by the reuse of this type of by-product in mortars and concretes manufacture. The study contains data on physical properties, chemical characteristics and pozzolanic properties of obtained biomass ashes: wheat straw ash and mixture of wheat and soya straw ash in Serbia, which were, later, used as supplementary cementitious materials in preparation of mortars. Experimental research of influence of biomass ashes on physical and mechanical properties of cement mortars was conducted. The results indicate that the biomass ashes can be successfully used in mortars as substitutes of cement without compromising their physical and mechanical performances.

Keywords: biomass, ash, cementitious material, mortar

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Authors: Md. Abud Darda

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Different options for natural gas production in wide geographic areas may be described through diffusion of innovation models. This type of modeling approach provides an indirect estimate of an ultimately recoverable resource, URR, capture the quantitative effects of observed strategic interventions, and allow ex-ante assessments of future scenarios over time. In order to ensure a sustainable energy policy, it is important to forecast the availability of this natural resource. Considering a finite life cycle, in this paper we try to investigate the natural gas production of Myanmar and Algeria, two important natural gas provider in the world energy market. A number of homogeneous and heterogeneous diffusion models, with convenient extensions, have been used. Models validation has also been performed in terms of prediction capability.

Keywords: diffusion models, energy forecast, natural gas, nonlinear production

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Authors: Sunday Olufemi Adesogan

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The supply of potable water at least is a very important index in national development. Water tariffs depend on the treatment cost which carries the highest percentage of the total operation cost in any water supply scheme. In order to keep water tariffs as low as possible, treatment costs have to be minimized. The University of Ibadan, Nigeria, water supply scheme consists of a treatment plant with three distribution stations (Amina way, Kurumi and Lander) and two raw water supply sources (Awba dam and Eleyele dam). An operational study of the scheme was carried out to ascertain the efficiency of the supply of potable water on the campus to justify the need for water supply schemes in tertiary institutions. The study involved regular collection, processing and analysis of periodic operational data. Data collected include supply reading (water production on daily basis) and consumers metered reading for a period of 22 months (October 2013 - July 2015), and also collected, were the operating hours of both plants and human beings. Applying the required mathematical equations, total loss was determined for the distribution system, which was translated into monetary terms. Adequacies of the operational functions were also determined. The study revealed that water supply scheme is justified in tertiary institutions. It was also found that approximately 10.7 million Nigerian naira (N) is lost to leakages during the 22-month study period; the system’s storage capacity is no longer adequate, especially for peak water production. The capacity of the system as a whole is insufficient for the present university population and that the existing water supply system is not being operated in an optimal manner especially due to personnel, power and system ageing constraints.

Keywords: development, panacea, supply, water

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Authors: Rohit Kapoor

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In this paper, an attempt is made to formulate 3-echelon repairable parts inventory system under (S-1, S) policy. This analytical model is the extension of an exact formulation of two - echelon repairable parts inventory system, already reported in the established literature. In the present paper, we try to formulate the total cost expression consisting of two components, viz., system investment cost and expected backorder cost.

Keywords: (S-1, S) inventory policy, multi-echelon inventory system, repairable parts

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Authors: Michael Adedotun Oke

Abstract:

This paper, therefore, under study the various multiplier usages of the different Animal Dungs, from the animals such as Rabbits, Cows, Fishes, Sheep, and Poultry manure in the areas council of the Federal Capital Territory Abuja, Nigeria. Thus the various observations, with the pictorial representation, that was taken with the field survey from the different farms in Gwagawalada. Shows that the rabbits dungs are being used in some of the vegetables and crop farms, which serves as the nutrients, reduces the cost of production, ensure profitability, which also increases the different vegetative growth, early maturity, and the development of the crop and this is also applicable to some crops like maize, sweet potatoes. While the manure of the poultry products are being incorporated to fish ponds and the cows dungs are being used to serve as some manure to some certain crops, e.g. Okro, Maize, Pepper. Which provides the necessary nutritious values, but the various number of quantity of different bags of the various application are lacking, and the time of usage, it is also a life germane questions, which there are needs for further adaptive research, that will be involved and the reintroduction of new technology, that will be used in terms of the different methodology such as broadcasting and ring applications, of the dungs at large, while the seasons of the various applications. Thus the paper, therefore, suggested a training programs and production of manuals that will guide the various applications and usage and the effective dissemination of the various used of the simple technology, that will advances and teaching of a new mode of and the time of applications and the various quantity to used, during the applications.

Keywords: animals, usage, livestock, dungs, feaces, gwagawalada

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Authors: Ramin Rezaei, Terry Ng, Abdollah Afjeh

Abstract:

Near wake development of a wind turbine affects the aerodynamic loads on the tower and the wind turbine. Design considerations of both isolated wind turbines and wind farms must include unsteady wake flow conditions under which the turbines must operate. The consequent aerodynamic loads could lead to over design of wind turbines and adversely affect the cost of wind turbines and, in turn, the cost of energy produced by wind turbines. Reducing the weight of turbine rotors is particularly desirable since larger wind turbine rotors can be utilized without significantly increasing the cost of the supporting structure. Larger rotor diameters produce larger swept areas and consequently greater energy production from the wind thereby reducing the levelized cost of wind energy. To understand the development and structure of the near tower wake of a wind turbine, an experimental study was conducted to describe the flow field of the near wake for both upwind and downwind turbines. The study was conducted under controlled environment of a wind tunnel using a scaled model of a turbine. The NREL 5 MW reference wind turbine was used as a baseline design and was modified as necessary to design and build upwind and downwind scaled wind turbine models. This paper presents the results of the wind tunnel study using turbine models to quantify the near wake of upwind and downwind wind turbine configurations for various lengths of tower-to-turbine spacing. The variations of mean velocity and turbulence are measured using a computer-controlled, traversing hot wire probe. Additionally, smoke flow visualizations were conducted to qualitatively study the wake. The results show a more rapid dissipation of the near wake for an upwind configuration. The results can readily be incorporated into low fidelity system level turbine simulation tools to more accurately account for the wake on the aerodynamic loads of a upwind and downwind turbines.

Keywords: hot wire anemometry, near wake, upwind and downwind turbine. Hot wire anemometry, near wake, upwind and downwind turbine

Procedia PDF Downloads 647

Authors: Yasaman Ashrafi, Stephen Kajewski, Annastiina Silvennoinen, Madhav Nepal

Abstract:

Mega projects either in construction, urban development or energy sectors are one of the key drivers that build the foundation of wealth and modern civilizations in regions and nations. Such projects require economic justification and substantial capital investment, often derived from individual and corporate investors as well as governments. Cost overruns and time delays in these mega projects demands a new approach to more accurately predict project costs and establish realistic financial plans. The significance of this paper is that the cost efficiency of megaprojects will improve and decrease cost overruns. This research will assist Project Managers (PMs) to make timely and appropriate decisions about both cost and outcomes of ongoing projects. This research, therefore, examines the oil and gas industry where most mega projects apply the classic methods of Cost Performance Index (CPI) and Schedule Performance Index (SPI) and rely on project data to forecast cost and time. Because these projects are always overrun in cost and time even at the early phase of the project, the probabilistic methods of Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS) and Bayesian Adaptive Forecasting method were used to predict project cost at completion of projects. The current theoretical and mathematical models which forecast the total expected cost and project completion date, during the execution phase of an ongoing project will be evaluated. Earned Value Management (EVM) method is unable to predict cost at completion of a project accurately due to the lack of enough detailed project information especially in the early phase of the project. During the project execution phase, the Bayesian adaptive forecasting method incorporates predictions into the actual performance data from earned value management and revises pre-project cost estimates, making full use of the available information. The outcome of this research is to improve the accuracy of both cost prediction and final duration. This research will provide a warning method to identify when current project performance deviates from planned performance and crates an unacceptable gap between preliminary planning and actual performance. This warning method will support project managers to take corrective actions on time.

Keywords: cost forecasting, earned value management, project control, project management, risk analysis, simulation

Procedia PDF Downloads 367