Search results for: Economic wide impact

Authors: G. Erkomaishvili

Abstract:

The paper discusses economic policy of Georgia aiming to increase national competitiveness as well as the tools and means which will help to improve the competitiveness of the country. The sectors of the economy, in which the country can achieve the competitive advantage, are studied. It is noted that the country’s economic policy plays an important role in obtaining and maintaining the competitive advantage - authority should take measures to ensure high level of education; scientific and research activities should be funded by the state; foreign direct investments should be attracted mainly in science-intensive industries; adaptation with the latest scientific achievements of the modern world and deepening of scientific and technical cooperation. Stable business environment and export oriented strategy is the basis for the country’s economic growth. As the outcome of the research, the paper suggests the strategy for improving competitiveness in Georgia; recommendations are provided based on relevant conclusions.

Keywords: Competitive advantage, competitiveness, competitiveness improvement strategy, competitiveness of Georgia.

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Authors: Badr M. Alshammari, T. Guesmi

Abstract:

This study presents a modified version of the artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm by including a local search technique for solving the non-convex economic power dispatch problem. The local search step is incorporated at the end of each iteration. Total system losses, valve-point loading effects and prohibited operating zones have been incorporated in the problem formulation. Thus, the problem becomes highly nonlinear and with discontinuous objective function. The proposed technique is validated using an IEEE benchmark system with ten thermal units. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed optimization algorithm has better convergence characteristics in comparison with the original ABC algorithm.

Keywords: Economic power dispatch, artificial bee colony, valve-point loading effects, prohibited operating zones.

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Authors: Shorena Tsiklauri, Avtandil Sulaberidze, Nino Gomelauri

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In the years followed independence, an economic crisis and some conflicts led to the displacement of many people inside Georgia. The growing poverty, unemployment, low income and its unequal distribution limited access to basic social service have had a clear direct impact on Georgian population dynamics and its age-sex structure. Factors influencing the changing population age structure and urbanization include mortality, fertility, migration and expansion of urban. In this paper presents the main factors of changing the distribution by urban and rural areas. How different are the urban and rural age and sex structures? Does Georgia have the same age-sex structure among their urban and rural populations since 1950s?

Keywords: Age and sex structure of population, Georgia, migration, urban-rural population.

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Authors: Marina Kapsali, John S. Anagnostopoulos

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On the basis of comparative analysis of alternative “development scenarios” for electricity generation, the main objective of the present study is to investigate the techno-economic viability of high wind energy (WE) use at the local (island) level. An integrated theoretical model is developed based on first principles assuming two main possible scenarios for covering future electrification needs of a medium–sized Greek island, i.e. Lesbos. The first scenario (S1), assumes that the island will keep using oil products as the main source for electricity generation. The second scenario (S2) involves the interconnection of the island with the mainland grid to satisfy part of the electricity demand, while remarkable WE penetration is also achieved. The economic feasibility of the above solutions is investigated in terms of determining their Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) for the time-period 2020-2045, including also a sensitivity analysis on the worst/reference/best Cases. According to the results obtained, interconnection of Lesbos Island with the mainland grid (S2) presents considerable economic interest in comparison to autonomous development (S1) with WE having a prominent role to this effect.

Keywords: Electricity generation cost, levelized cost of energy, mainland, wind energy surplus.

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Authors: Jasminka Radolović

Abstract:

Countries in recession, among them Croatia, have lower tax revenues as a result of unfavorable economic situation, which is decrease of the economic activities and unemployment. The global tax base has decreased. In order to create larger state revenues, states use the institute of tax authorities. By controlling transfer pricing in the international companies and using certain techniques, tax authorities can create greater tax obligations for the companies in a short period of time.

Keywords: Documentation, Methods, Tax Optimization, Transfer Pricing

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Authors: E. Sok, Y. Zhuo, S. Wang

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A hybrid Photovoltaic/Thermal (PV/T) solar system integrates photovoltaic and solar thermal technologies into one single solar energy device, with dual generation of electricity and heat energy. The aim of the present study is to evaluate the potential for introduction of the PV/T technology into Northern China. For this purpose, outdoor experiments were conducted on a prototype of a PV/T water-heating system. The annual thermal and electrical performances were investigated under the climatic conditions of Beijing. An economic analysis of the system was then carried out, followed by a sensitivity study. The analysis revealed that the hybrid system is not economically attractive with the current market and energy prices. However, considering the continuous commitment of the Chinese government towards policy development in the renewable energy sector, and technological improvements like the increasing cost-effectiveness of PV cells, PV/Thermal technology may become economically viable in the near future.

Keywords: Hybrid Photovoltaic/Thermal (PV/T), Solar energy, Economic analysis

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Authors: Abinash Tripathy, Girish Muralidharan, Amitava Pramanik, Prosenjit Sen

Abstract:

Superhydrophobic surfaces are abundant in nature. Several surfaces such as wings of butterfly, legs of water strider, feet of gecko and the lotus leaf show extreme water repellence behaviour. Self-cleaning, stain-free fabrics, spill-resistant protective wears, drag reduction in micro-fluidic devices etc. are few applications of superhydrophobic surfaces. In order to design robust superhydrophobic surface, it is important to understand the interaction of water with superhydrophobic surface textures. In this work, we report a simple coating method for creating large-scale flexible superhydrophobic paper surface. The surface consists of multiple layers of silanized zirconia microparticles decorated with zirconia nanoparticles. Water contact angle as high as 159±1⁰ and contact angle hysteresis less than 8⁰ was observed. Drop impact studies on superhydrophobic paper surface were carried out by impinging water droplet and capturing its dynamics through high speed imaging. During the drop impact, the Weber number was varied from 20 to 80 by altering the impact velocity of the drop and the parameters such as contact time, normalized spread diameter were obtained. In contrast to earlier literature reports, we observed contact time to be dependent on impact velocity on superhydrophobic surface. Total contact time was split into two components as spread time and recoil time. The recoil time was found to be dependent on the impact velocity while the spread time on the surface did not show much variation with the impact velocity. Further, normalized spreading parameter was found to increase with increase in impact velocity.

Keywords: Contact angle, contact angle hysteresis, contact time, superhydrophobic.

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Authors: Rumman Md Raihanuzzaman, Lee Chang Chuan, Zonghan Xie, Reza Ghomashchi

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Cemented carbides, owing to their excellent mechanical properties, have been of immense interest in the field of hard materials for the past few decades. A number of processing techniques have been developed to obtain high quality carbide tools, with a wide range of grain size depending on the application and requirements. Microwave sintering is one of the heating processes, which has been used to prepare a wide range of materials including ceramics. A deep understanding of microwave sintering and its contribution towards control of grain growth and on deformation of the resulting carbide materials requires further studies and attention. In addition, the effect of binder materials and their behavior during microwave sintering is another area that requires clear understanding. This review aims to focus on microwave sintering, providing information of how the process works and what type of materials it is best suited for. In addition, a closer look at some microwave sintered Tungsten Carbide-Cobalt samples will be taken and discussed, highlighting some of the key issues and challenges faced in this research area.

Keywords: Cemented carbides, consolidation, microwave sintering, mechanical properties.

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Authors: Ke Zhao, Ballarat Colin Richardson, Jerry Courvisanos, John Crawford

Abstract:

Climate change has profound consequences for the agriculture of south-eastern Australia and its climate-induced water shortage in the Murray-Darling Basin. Post Keynesian Economics (PKE) macro-dynamics, along with Kaleckian investment and growth theory, are used to develop an ecological-economic system dynamics model of this complex nonlinear river basin system. The Murray- Darling Basin Simulation Model (MDB-SM) uses the principles of PKE to incorporate the fundamental uncertainty of economic behaviors of farmers regarding the investments they make and the climate change they face, particularly as regards water ecosystem services. MDB-SM provides a framework for macroeconomic policies, especially for long-term fiscal policy and for policy directed at the sustainability of agricultural water, as measured by socio-economic well-being considerations, which include sustainable consumption and investment in the river basin. The model can also reproduce other ecological and economic aspects and, for certain parameters and initial values, exhibit endogenous business cycles and ecological sustainability with realistic characteristics. Most importantly, MDBSM provides a platform for the analysis of alternative economic policy scenarios. These results reveal the importance of understanding water ecosystem adaptation under climate change by integrating a PKE macroeconomic analytical framework with the system dynamics modelling approach. Once parameterised and supplied with historical initial values, MDB-SM should prove to be a practical tool to provide alternative long-term policy simulations of agricultural water and socio-economic well-being.

Keywords: Agricultural water, Macroeconomic dynamics, Modeling, Investment dynamics, Sustainability, Unemployment, Economics, Keynesian, Kaleckian.

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Authors: Rolf Katzenbach, Frithjof Clauss, Jie Zheng

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The final energy use can be divided mainly in four sectors: commercial, industrial, residential, and transportation. The trend in final energy consumption by sector plays as a most straightforward way to provide a wide indication of progress for reducing energy consumption and associated environmental impacts by different end use sectors. The average share of end use energy for residential sector in the world was nearly 20% until 2011, in Germany a higher proportion is between 25% and 30%. However, it remains less studied than energy use in other three sectors as well its impacts on climate and environment. The reason for this involves a wide range of fields, including the diversity of residential construction like different housing building design and materials, living or energy using behavioral patterns, climatic condition and variation as well other social obstacles, market trend potential and financial support from government.

This paper presents an extensive and in-depth analysis of the manner by which projects researched and operated by authors in the fields of energy efficiency primarily from the perspectives of both technical potential and initiative energy saving consciousness in the residential sectors especially in social housing buildings.

Keywords: Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy, Retro-commissioning, Social Housing, Sustainability.

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Authors: M.E. Masoumi, S. Kadkhodaie

Abstract:

Distillation column is one of the most common operations in process industries and is while the most expensive unit of the amount of energy consumption. Many ideas have been presented in the related literature for optimizing energy consumption in distillation columns. This paper studies the different heat integration methods in a distillation column which separate Benzene, Toluene, Xylene, and C9+. Three schemes of heat integration including, indirect sequence (IQ), indirect sequence with forward energy integration (IQF), and indirect sequence with backward energy integration (IQB) has been studied in this paper. Using shortcut method these heat integration schemes were simulated with Aspen HYSYS software and compared with each other with regarding economic considerations. The result shows that the energy consumption has been reduced 33% in IQF and 28% in IQB in comparison with IQ scheme. Also the economic result shows that the total annual cost has been reduced 12% in IQF and 8% in IQB regarding with IQ scheme. Therefore, the IQF scheme is most economic than IQB and IQ scheme.

Keywords: Optimization, Distillation Column Sequence, Energy Savings

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Authors: Encarnación Álvarez, Rosa M. García-Fernández, Francisco J. Blanco-Encomienda, Juan F. Muñoz

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The European Union Survey on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) is a popular survey which provides information on income, poverty, social exclusion and living conditions of households and individuals in the European Union. The EU-SILC contains variables which may contain outliers. The presence of outliers can have an impact on the measures and indicators used by the EU-SILC. In this paper, we used data sets from various countries to analyze the presence of outliers. In addition, we obtain some indicators after removing these outliers, and a comparison between both situations can be observed. Finally, some conclusions are obtained.

Keywords: Headcount index, poverty line, risk of poverty, skewness coefficient.

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Authors: Chizoba Chinweze, Gwen Abiola-Oloke, Chike Jideani

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There is an urgent need to conserve the biological diversity of the Nigerian Environment for the future and present generation in the face of current energy resources development. This paper gives an in-depth analysis of the impact of oil and gas activities on the biological diversity of the Nigerian Niger Delta area and its consequences on the sustainable development of the host communities as it relates to their social, economic and environmental issues, particularly on the womenfolk who are the key managers of environmental resources. Also reviewed is the frustration of these communities that is reflected in unending conflicts.

Keywords: Biodiversity, energy resources, sustainable development, and women issues.

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Authors: Montree Kumngern, Kobchai Dejhan

Abstract:

Versatile dual-mode class-AB CMOS four-quadrant analog multiplier circuit is presented. The dual translinear loops and current mirrors are the basic building blocks in realization scheme. This technique provides; wide dynamic range, wide-bandwidth response and low power consumption. The major advantages of this approach are; its has single ended inputs; since its input is dual translinear loop operate in class-AB mode which make this multiplier configuration interesting for low-power applications; current multiplying, voltage multiplying, or current and voltage multiplying can be obtainable with balanced input. The simulation results of versatile analog multiplier demonstrate a linearity error of 1.2 %, a -3dB bandwidth of about 19MHz, a maximum power consumption of 0.46mW, and temperature compensated. Operation of versatile analog multiplier was also confirmed through an experiment using CMOS transistor array.

Keywords: Class-AB, dual-mode CMOS analog multiplier, CMOS analog integrated circuit, CMOS translinear integrated circuit.

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Authors: Valeriya Tyo, Serikbolat Yessengabulov

Abstract:

Regions with extreme climate conditions such as Astana city require energy saving measures to increase energy performance of buildings which are responsible for more than 40% of total energy consumption. Identification of optimal building geometry is one of key factors to be considered. Architectural form of a building has impact on space heating and cooling energy use, however the interrelationship between the geometry and resultant energy use is not always readily apparent. This paper presents a comparative case study of two prototypical buildings with compact building shape to assess its impact on energy performance.

Keywords: Building geometry, energy efficiency, heat gain, heat loss.

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Authors: Vineet Kansal

Abstract:

Enterprise Wide Information Systems (EWIS) implementation involves the entire business and will require changes throughout the firm. Because of the scope, complexity and continuous nature of ERP, the project-based approach to managing the implementation process resulted in failure rates of between 60% and 80%. In recent years ERP systems have received much attention. The organizational relevance and risk of ERP projects make it important for organizations to focus on ways to make ERP implementation successful. Once these systems are in place, however, their performance depends on the identified macro variables viz. 'Business Process', 'Decision Making' and 'Individual / Group working'. The questionnaire was designed and administered. The responses from 92 organizations were compiled. The relationship of these variables with EWIS performance is analyzed using inferential statistical measurements. The study helps to understand the performance of model presented. The study suggested in keeping away from the calamities and thereby giving the necessary competitive edge. Whenever some discrepancy is identified during the process of performance appraisal care has to be taken to draft necessary preventive measures. If all these measures are taken care off then the EWIS performance will definitely deliver the results.

Keywords: Enterprise Systems, performance, technology

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Authors: N. K. Srivastava, M. K. Jha, I. D. Mall, Davinder Singh

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The treatment of the industrial wastewater can be particularly difficult in the presence of toxic compounds. Excessive concentration of Chromium in soluble form is toxic to a wide variety of living organisms. Biological removal of heavy metals using natural and genetically engineered microorganisms has aroused great interest because of its lower impact on the environment. Ralston metallidurans, formerly known as Alcaligenes eutrophus is a LProteobacterium colonizing industrial wastewater with a high content of heavy metals. Tris-buffered mineral salt medium was used for growing Alcaligenes eutrophus AE104 (pEBZ141). The cells were cultivated for 18 h at 30 oC in Tris-buffered mineral salt medium containing 3 mM disodium sulphate and 46 mM sodium gluconate as the carbon source. The cells were harvested by centrifugation, washed, and suspended in 10 mM Tris HCl, pH 7.0, containing 46 mM sodium gluconate, and 5 mM Chromium. Interaction among induction of chr resistance determinant, and chromate reduction have been demonstrated. Results of this study show that the above bacteria can be very useful for bioremediation of chromium from industrial wastewater.

Keywords: Chromium, Genetic Engineering, IndustrialWastewater, Plasmid

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Authors: Nazira Kakulia, Tsotne Zhghenti

Abstract:

The institutional development is one of the actual topics in economics science. New trends and directions of institutional development mostly depend on its structure and framework. Transformation of institutions is an important problem for every economy, especially for developing countries. The first research goal is to determine the importance and interactions between different institutions in Georgia. Using World Governance Indicators and Economic Freedom indexes it can be calculated the size for each institutional group. The second aim of this research is to evaluate Georgian institutional backwardness in comparison to other post-communist economies. We use statistical and econometric methods to evaluate the difference between the levels of institutional development in Georgia and in leading post-communist economies. Within the scope of this research, major findings are coefficients which are an assessment of their deviation (i.e. lag) of institutional indicators between Georgia and leading post-communist country which should be compared. The last part of the article includes analysis around the selected coefficients.

Keywords: Post-communist transition, institutions, economic growth, institutional development.

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Authors: Woowon Jeong, Kyehan Rhee

Abstract:

Recurrence of aneurysm rupture can be attributed to coil migration and compaction. In order to verify the effects of hemodynamics on coil compaction and migration, we analyze the forces and displacements on the coil bundle using a computational method. Lateral aneurysms partially filled coils are modeled, and blood flow fields and coil deformations are simulated considering fluid and solid interaction. Effects of aneurysm neck size and parent vessel geometry are also investigated. The results showed that coil deformation was larger in the aneurysms with a wider neck. Parent vessel geometry and aneurysm neck size also affected mean pressure force profiles on the coil surface. Pressure forces were higher in wide neck models with curved parent vessel geometry. Simulation results showed that coils in the wide neck aneurysm with a curved parent vessel may be displaced and compacted more easily.

Keywords: Hemodynamics, Aneurysm, Coil compaction, Fluid Structure Interaction (FSI)

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Authors: Neslihan Genckal, Reha Gursoy, Vedat Z. Dogan

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In this study, dynamic responses of composite plates on elastic foundations subjected to impact and moving loads are investigated. The first order shear deformation (FSDT) theory is used for moderately thick plates. Pasternak-type (two-parameter) elastic foundation is assumed. Elastic foundation effects are integrated into the governing equations. It is assumed that plate is first hit by a mass as an impact type loading then the mass continues to move on the composite plate as a distributed moving loading, which resembles the aircraft landing on airport pavements. Impact and moving loadings are modeled by a mass-spring-damper system with a wheel. The wheel is assumed to be continuously in contact with the plate after impact. The governing partial differential equations of motion for displacements are converted into the ordinary differential equations in the time domain by using Galerkin’s method. Then, these sets of equations are solved by using the Runge-Kutta method. Several parameters such as vertical and horizontal velocities of the aircraft, volume fractions of the steel rebar in the reinforced concrete layer, and the different touchdown locations of the aircraft tire on the runway are considered in the numerical simulation. The results are compared with those of the ABAQUS, which is a commercial finite element code.

Keywords: Elastic foundation, impact, moving load, thick plate.

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Authors: A. M. Sultana, Norhirdawati. M. Zahir, Norzalan. H. Yaacob

Abstract:

Recently in Malaysia, women's participation in teaching profession has increased. The increasing trend of women’s participation in the teaching profession poses challenges in families, especially in the developing countries like Malaysia. One of these challenges, concerns in balancing their role between family and job responsibility that faced by many women teachers. The purpose of this study is to discover how women teachers' impact on family happiness and the challenges faced by them in balancing their role between family and job responsibility. The findings presented in this study are based on survey research in a secondary school Dato’ Bijaya Setia in the district of Gugusan Manjoi which is located in Kedah, Malaysia. The study found that employment of women in economic activity has several beneficial impacts of improving the economic condition of the family. The results also revealed that in low income earning families, both husbands and wives’ employment contribute to the family income that less likely to experience of family poverty. The study also showed despite women's teachers’ significant role towards the overall development of the family, the majority of women teachers encountered a number of difficulties in balancing their role between family and job responsibility especially when they need to work more than the normal working time. Therefore, it is common for the majority of women suffering from psychological stress when they are unable to complete the task at a fixed time. The present study also suggests implication of family friendly policy and its appropriate practice to support the women teachers who are significantly contributing to family, community and the country.

Keywords: Emotional exhaustion, Family friendly policy, Work family conflict, Women Teacher.

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Authors: Duy M. P. Vo, Cornelia Sennewald, Gerald Hoffmann, Chokri Cherif

Abstract:

The development of solutions to improve the resistance of buildings to short-term dynamic loads, particularly impact load, is driven by the urgent demand worldwide on securing human life and critical infrastructures. The research training group GRK 2250/1 aims to develop mineral-bonded composites that allow the fabrication of thin-layered strengthening layers providing available concrete members with enhanced impact resistance. This paper presents the development of 3D woven wire cellular structures that can be used as innovative reinforcement for targeted composites. 3D woven wire cellular structures are truss-like architectures that can be fabricated in an automatized process with a great customization possibility. The specific architecture allows this kind of structures to have good load bearing capability and forming behavior, which is of great potential to give strength against impact loading. An appropriate combination of topology and material enables an optimal use of thin-layered reinforcement in concrete constructions.

Keywords: 3D woven cellular structures, ductile behavior, energy absorption, fiber-based reinforced concrete, impact resistant.

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Authors: S. Rao Rayapudi

Abstract:

Economic Load Dispatch (ELD) is a method of determining the most efficient, low-cost and reliable operation of a power system by dispatching available electricity generation resources to supply load on the system. The primary objective of economic dispatch is to minimize total cost of generation while honoring operational constraints of available generation resources. In this paper an intelligent water drop (IWD) algorithm has been proposed to solve ELD problem with an objective of minimizing the total cost of generation. Intelligent water drop algorithm is a swarm-based natureinspired optimization algorithm, which has been inspired from natural rivers. A natural river often finds good paths among lots of possible paths in its ways from source to destination and finally find almost optimal path to their destination. These ideas are embedded into the proposed algorithm for solving economic load dispatch problem. The main advantage of the proposed technique is easy is implement and capable of finding feasible near global optimal solution with less computational effort. In order to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method, it has been tested on 6-unit and 20-unit test systems with incremental fuel cost functions taking into account the valve point-point loading effects. Numerical results shows that the proposed method has good convergence property and better in quality of solution than other algorithms reported in recent literature.

Keywords: Economic load dispatch, Transmission loss, Optimization, Valve point loading, Intelligent Water Drop Algorithm.

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Authors: Balimu Mwiya, Mundia Muya, Chabota Kaliba, Peter Mukalula

Abstract:

Factors affecting construction unit cost vary depending on a country’s political, economic, social and technological inclinations. Factors affecting construction costs have been studied from various perspectives. Analysis of cost factors requires an appreciation of a country’s practices. Identified cost factors provide an indication of a country’s construction economic strata. The purpose of this paper is to identify the essential factors that affect unit cost estimation and their breakdown using artificial neural networks. Twenty five (25) identified cost factors in road construction were subjected to a questionnaire survey and employing SPSS factor analysis the factors were reduced to eight. The 8 factors were analysed using neural network (NN) to determine the proportionate breakdown of the cost factors in a given construction unit rate. NN predicted that political environment accounted 44% of the unit rate followed by contractor capacity at 22% and financial delays, project feasibility and overhead & profit each at 11%. Project location, material availability and corruption perception index had minimal impact on the unit cost from the training data provided. Quantified cost factors can be incorporated in unit cost estimation models (UCEM) to produce more accurate estimates. This can create improvements in the cost estimation of infrastructure projects and establish a benchmark standard to assist the process of alignment of work practises and training of new staff, permitting the on-going development of best practises in cost estimation to become more effective.

Keywords: Construction cost factors, neural networks, roadworks, Zambian Construction Industry.

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Authors: Jindřiška Šedová

Abstract:

In the past 20 years the economy of the Czech Republic has experienced substantial changes. In the 1990s the development was affected by the transformation which sought to establish the right conditions for privatization and creation of elementary market relations. In the last decade the characteristic elements such as private ownership and corresponding institutional framework have been strengthened. This development was marked by the accession of the Czech Republic to the EU. The Czech Republic is striving to reduce the difference between its level of economic development and the quality of institutional framework in comparison with other developed countries. The process of finding the adequate solutions has been hampered by the negative impact of the world financial crisis on the Czech Republic and the standard of living of its inhabitants. This contribution seeks to address the question of whether and to which extent the economic development of the transitive Czech economy is affected by the change in behaviour of households and their tendency to consumption, i.e. in the sense of reduction or increase in demand for goods and services. It aims to verify whether the increasing trend of household indebtedness and decreasing trend of saving pose a significant risk in the Czech Republic. At a general level the analysis aims to contribute to finding an answer to the question of whether the debt increase of Czech households is connected to the risk of "eating through" the borrowed money and whether Czech households risk falling into a debt trap. In addition to household indebtedness risks in the Czech Republic the analysis will focus on identification of specifics of the transformation phase of the Czech economy in comparison with the EU countries, or selected OECD countries.

Keywords: household indebtedness, household consumption, credits, financial literacy

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Authors: Jaroslav Polec, Martin Šimek, Michal Martinovič, Elena Šikudová

Abstract:

The television multiplex has reserved capacity and therefore we can use only limited number of videos for propagation of it. Appropriate composition of the multiplex has a major impact on how many videos is spread by multiplex. Therefore in this paper is designed a simple algorithm to optimize capacity utilization multiplex. Significant impact on the number of programs in the multiplex has also the fact from which programs is composed. Content of multiplex can be movies, news, sport, animated stories, documentaries, etc. These types have their own specific characteristics that affect their resulting data stream. In this paper is also done an impact analysis of the composition of the multiplex to use its capacity by video content. 

Keywords: Multiplex, content, group of pictures, frame, capacity.

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Authors: Mijoh A. Gbededo, Kapila Liyanage, Ilias Oraifige

Abstract:

Decision making for sustainable manufacturing design and management requires critical considerations due to the complexity and partly conflicting issues of economic, social and environmental factors. Although there are tools capable of assessing the combination of one or two of the sustainability factors, the frameworks have not adequately integrated all the three factors. Case study and review of existing simulation applications also shows the approach lacks integration of the sustainability factors. In this paper we discussed the development of a simulation based framework for support of a holistic assessment of sustainable manufacturing design and management. To achieve this, a strategic approach is introduced to investigate the strengths and weaknesses of the existing decision supporting tools. Investigation reveals that Discrete Event Simulation (DES) can serve as a rock base for other Life Cycle Analysis frameworks. Simio-DES application optimizes systems for both economic and competitive advantage, Granta CES EduPack and SimaPro collate data for Material Flow Analysis and environmental Life Cycle Assessment, while social and stakeholders’ analysis is supported by Analytical Hierarchy Process, a Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis method. Such a common and integrated framework creates a platform for companies to build a computer simulation model of a real system and assess the impact of alternative solutions before implementing a chosen solution.

Keywords: Discrete event simulation, life cycle sustainability analysis, manufacturing, sustainability.

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Authors: Shakil M. Rifaat, Md. H. Rahman, Mohammed, Mosabbir Pasha

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Road crashes not only claim lives and inflict injuries but also create economic burden to the society due to loss of productivity. The problem of deaths and injuries as a result of road traffic crashes is now acknowledged to be a global phenomenon with authorities in virtually all countries of the world concerned about the growth in the number of people killed and seriously injured on their roads. However, the road crash scenario of a developing country like Bangladesh is much worse comparing with this of developed countries. For developing proper countermeasures it is necessary to identify the factors affecting crash occurrences. The objectives of the study is to examine the effect of district wise road infrastructure, socioeconomic and demographic features on crash occurrence .The unit of analysis will be taken as individual district which has not been explored much in the past. Reported crash data obtained from Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) from the year 2004 to 2010 are utilized to develop negative binomial model. The model result will reveal the effect of road length (both paved and unpaved), road infrastructure and several socio economic characteristics on district level crash frequency in Bangladesh.

Keywords: Demographic, Negative Binomial Model, Road Infrastructure, Socio-economic, Traffic Safety.

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Authors: Mohammad Bsoul, Iain Phillips, Chris Hinde

Abstract:

This paper is concerned with the design and implementation of MICOSim, an event-driven simulator written in Java for evaluating the performance of Grid entities (users, brokers and resources) under different scenarios such as varying the numbers of users, resources and brokers and varying their specifications and employed strategies.

Keywords: Grid computing, Economic Scheduling, Simulation, Event-Driven, Java.

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Authors: Somphoom Sawaengkun

Abstract:

The purpose of this study was primarily assessing how important economic factors namely: The Thai export price of white rice, the exchange rate, and the world rice consumption affect the overall Thai white rice export, using historical data during the period 1989-2013 from the Thai Rice Exporters Association, and Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations. The co-integration method, regression analysis, and error correction model were applied to investigate the econometric model. The findings indicated that in the long-run, the world rice consumption, the exchange rate, and the Thai export price of white rice were the important factors affecting the export quantity of Thai white rice respectively, as indicated by their significant coefficients. Meanwhile, the rice export price was an important factor affecting the export quantity of Thai white rice in the short-run. This information is useful in the business, export opportunities, price competitiveness, and policymaker in Thailand.

Keywords: Economic Factors, Rice Export, White Rice.

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