Search results for: direct cost

Authors: Muhammad Jamaluddin Thaheem, Alberto De Marco

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The area of Project Risk Management (PRM) has been extensively researched, and the utilization of various tools and techniques for managing risk in several industries has been sufficiently reported. Formal and systematic PRM practices have been made available for the construction industry. Based on such body of knowledge, this paper tries to find out the global picture of PRM practices and approaches with the help of a survey to look into the usage of PRM techniques and diffusion of software tools, their level of maturity, and their usefulness in the construction sector. Results show that, despite existing techniques and tools, their usage is limited: software tools are used only by a minority of respondents and their cost is one of the largest hurdles in adoption. Finally, the paper provides some important guidelines for future research regarding quantitative risk analysis techniques and suggestions for PRM software tools development and improvement.

Keywords: Construction industry, Project risk management, Software tools, Survey study.

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Authors: C. L. Voon, M. Awang

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CO₂ miscible displacement is not feasible in many oil fields due to high reservoir temperature as higher pressure is required to achieve miscibility. The miscibility pressure is far higher than the formation fracture pressure making it impossible to have CO₂ miscible displacement. However, by using oleophilic chemicals, minimum miscibility pressure (MMP) could be lowered. The main objective of this research is to find the best oleophilic chemical in MMP reduction using slim-tube test and Vanishing Interfacial Tension (VIT) The chemicals are selected based on the characteristics that it must be oil soluble, low water solubility, have 4 – 8 carbons, semi polar, economical, and safe for human operation. The families of chemicals chosen are carboxylic acid, alcohol, and ketone. The whole experiment would be conducted at 100°C and the best chemical is said to be effective when it is able to lower CO₂-crude oil MMP the most. Findings of this research would have great impact to the oil and gas industry in reduction of operation cost for CO₂EOR which is applicable to both onshore and offshore operation.

Keywords: Enhanced Oil Recovery, Oleophilic Chemical, Minimum Miscibility Pressure, CO2 Miscible Displacement.

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Authors: Daniel Y. Abebe, Dongyoung Lim, Gyumyong Gwak, Jaehyouk Choi

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The design philosophy of building structure has been changing time to time. The reason for this is because of an increase of human inertest, an improved building materials and technology that will impact how we live, to speed up construction period and natural effect which includes earthquake disasters and environmental effect. One technique which takes in to account the above case is using a prefabricable structural system. In which each and every structural element is designed and prefabricated and assembled on a site so that the construction speed is increased and the environmental impact is also enhanced. This system has an immense advantage such as: reduce construction cost, reusable, recyclable, speed up construction period and less environmental effect. In this study, it is tried to present some of the developed and evaluated structural elements of building structures.

Keywords: Eccentrically braced frame, Natural disaster, Prefabricable structural, Removable link, SGSS.

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Authors: Aaron Aboshio

Abstract:

Numerical study of the static response of homogeneous clay stratum considering a wide range of cohesion and subject to foundation loads is presented. The linear elastic–perfectly plastic constitutive relation with the von Mises yield criterion were utilised to develop a numerically cost effective finite element model for the soil while imposing a rigid body constrain to the foundation footing. From the analyses carried out, estimate of the bearing capacity factor, Nc as well as the ultimate load-carrying capacities of these soils, effect of cohesion on foundation settlements, stress fields and failure propagation were obtained. These are consistent with other findings in the literature and hence can be a useful guide in design of safe foundations in clay soils for buildings and other structure.

Keywords: Bearing capacity factors, finite element method, safe bearing pressure, structure-soil interaction.

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Authors: Michal Lysek, Mike Danilovic, Jasmine Lihua Liu

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HMS Industrial Networks AB has been recognized as one of the most innovative companies in the industrial communication industry worldwide. The creation of their Anybus innovation during the 1990s contributed considerably to the company’s success. From inception, HMS’ employees were innovating for the purpose of creating new business (the creation phase). After the Anybus innovation, they began the process of internationalization (the commercialization phase), which in turn led them to concentrate on cost reduction, product quality, delivery precision, operational efficiency, and increasing growth (the growth phase). As a result of this transformation, performing new radical innovations have become more complicated. The purpose of our research was to explore the dynamics of innovation at HMS from the aspect of key actors, activities, and events, over the three phases, in order to understand what led to the creation of their Anybus innovation, and why it has become increasingly challenging for HMS to create new radical innovations for the future. Our research methodology was based on a longitudinal, retrospective study from the inception of HMS in 1988 to 2014, a single case study inspired by the grounded theory approach. We conducted 47 interviews and collected 1 024 historical documents for our research. Our analysis has revealed that HMS’ success in creating the Anybus, and developing a successful business around the innovation, was based on three main capabilities – cultivating customer relations on different managerial and organizational levels, inspiring business relations, and balancing complementary human assets for the purpose of business creation. The success of HMS has turned the management’s attention away from past activities of key actors, of their behavior, and how they influenced and stimulated the creation of radical innovations. Nowadays, they are rhetorically focusing on creativity and innovation. All the while, their real actions put emphasis on growth, cost reduction, product quality, delivery precision, operational efficiency, and moneymaking. In the process of becoming an international company, HMS gradually refocused. In so doing they became profitable and successful, but they also forgot what made them innovative in the first place. Fortunately, HMS’ management has come to realize that this is the case and they are now in search of recapturing innovation once again. Our analysis indicates that HMS’ management is facing several barriers to innovation related path dependency and other lock-in phenomena. HMS’ management has been captured, trapped in their mindset and actions, by the success of the past. But now their future has to be secured, and they have come to realize that moneymaking is not everything. In recent years, HMS’ management have begun to search for innovation once more, in order to recapture their past capabilities for creating radical innovations. In order to unlock their managerial perceptions of customer needs and their counter-innovation driven activities and events, to utilize the full potential of their employees and capture the innovation opportunity for the future.

Keywords: Barriers to innovation, dynamics of innovation, in search of excellence and innovation, radical innovation.

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Authors: Seong-Bae Park, Sang-Soo Kim, Sewook Oh, Zooyl Zeong, Hojin Lee, Seong Rae Park

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An ontology is widely used in many kinds of applications as a knowledge representation tool for domain knowledge. However, even though an ontology schema is well prepared by domain experts, it is tedious and cost-intensive to add instances into the ontology. The most confident and trust-worthy way to add instances into the ontology is to gather instances from tables in the related Web pages. In automatic populating of instances, the primary task is to find the most proper concept among all possible concepts within the ontology for a given table. This paper proposes a novel method for this problem by defining the similarity between the table and the concept using the overlap of their properties. According to a series of experiments, the proposed method achieves 76.98% of accuracy. This implies that the proposed method is a plausible way for automatic ontology population from Web tables.

Keywords: Ontology population, domain knowledge consolidation, target concept selection, property overlap.

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Authors: Walid S. Abd El-hamid, Sherif S. El-Etriby, Mohiy M. Hadhoud

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Regression testing is a maintenance activity applied to modified software to provide confidence that the changed parts are correct and that the unchanged parts have not been adversely affected by the modifications. Regression test selection techniques reduce the cost of regression testing, by selecting a subset of an existing test suite to use in retesting modified programs. This paper presents the first general regression-test-selection technique, which based on code and allows selecting test cases for any programs written in any programming language. Then it handles incomplete program. We also describe RTSDiff, a regression-test-selection system that implements the proposed technique. The results of the empirical studied that performed in four programming languages java, C#, Cµ and Visual basic show that the efficiency and effective in reducing the size of test suit.

Keywords: Regression testing, testing, test selection, softwareevolution, software maintenance.

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Authors: C. Benjbara, A. Habbani

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Wireless networks are getting more and more used in every new technology or feature, especially those without infrastructure (Ad hoc mode) which provide a low cost alternative to the infrastructure mode wireless networks and a great flexibility for application domains such as environmental monitoring, smart cities, precision agriculture, and so on. These application domains present a common characteristic which is the need of coexistence and intercommunication between modules belonging to different types of ad hoc networks like wireless sensor networks, mesh networks, mobile ad hoc networks, vehicular ad hoc networks, etc. This vision to bring to life such heterogeneous networks will make humanity duties easier but its development path is full of challenges. One of these challenges is the communication complexity between its components due to the lack of common or compatible protocols standard. This article proposes a new patented routing protocol based on the OLSR standard in order to resolve the heterogeneous ad hoc networks communication issue. This new protocol is applied on a specific network architecture composed of MANET, VANET, and FANET.

Keywords: Ad hoc, heterogeneous, ID-Node, OLSR.

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Authors: Leila Vafajoo, Farhad Khorasheh, Mehrnoosh Hamzezadeh Nakhjavani, Moslem Fattahi

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In the present study, a procedure was developed to determine the optimum reaction rate constants in generalized Arrhenius form and optimized through the Nelder-Mead method. For this purpose, a comprehensive mathematical model of a fixed bed reactor for dehydrogenation of heavy paraffins over Pt–Sn/Al2O3 catalyst was developed. Utilizing appropriate kinetic rate expressions for the main dehydrogenation reaction as well as side reactions and catalyst deactivation, a detailed model for the radial flow reactor was obtained. The reactor model composed of a set of partial differential equations (PDE), ordinary differential equations (ODE) as well as algebraic equations all of which were solved numerically to determine variations in components- concentrations in term of mole percents as a function of time and reactor radius. It was demonstrated that most significant variations observed at the entrance of the bed and the initial olefin production obtained was rather high. The aforementioned method utilized a direct-search optimization algorithm along with the numerical solution of the governing differential equations. The usefulness and validity of the method was demonstrated by comparing the predicted values of the kinetic constants using the proposed method with a series of experimental values reported in the literature for different systems.

Keywords: Dehydrogenation, Pt-Sn/Al2O3 Catalyst, Modeling, Nelder-Mead, Optimization

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Authors: Kouassi Dongo, Christian Zurbrügg, Gueladio Cissé1, Brigit Obrist, Marcel Tanner, Jean Biémi

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This study analyzed environmental health risks and people-s perceptions of risks related to waste management in poor settlements of Abidjan, to develop integrated solutions for health and well-being improvement. The trans-disciplinary approach used relied on remote sensing, a geographic information system (GIS), qualitative and quantitative methods such as interviews and a household survey (n=1800). Mitigating strategies were then developed using an integrated participatory stakeholder workshop. Waste management deficiencies resulting in lack of drainage and uncontrolled solid and liquid waste disposal in the poor settlements lead to severe environmental health risks. Health problems were caused by direct handling of waste, as well as through broader exposure of the population. People in poor settlements had little awareness of health risks related to waste management in their community and a general lack of knowledge pertaining to sanitation systems. This unfortunate combination was the key determinant affecting the health and vulnerability. For example, an increased prevalence of malaria (47.1%) and diarrhoea (19.2%) was observed in the rainy season when compared to the dry season (32.3% and 14.3%). Concerted and adapted solutions that suited all the stakeholders concerned were developed in a participatory workshop to allow for improvement of health and well-being.

Keywords: Abidjan, environmental health risks, informalsettlements, vulnerability, waste management.

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Authors: Abdulrahim Shamayleh, John Fowler, Muhong Zhang

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Operating rooms are important assets for hospitals as they generate the largest revenue and, at the same time, produce the largest cost for hospitals. The model presented in this paper helps make capacity planning decisions on the combination of open operating rooms (ORs) and estimated overtime to satisfy the allocated OR time to each specialty. The model combines both decisions on determining the amount of OR time to open and to allocate to different surgical specialties. The decisions made are based on OR costs, overutilization and underutilization costs, and contribution margins from allocating OR time. The results show the importance of having a good estimate of specialty usage of OR time to determine the amount of needed capacity and highlighted the tradeoff that the OR manager faces between opening more ORs versus extending the working time of the ORs already in use.

Keywords: capacity planning, contribution margins, operating room, overutilization

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Authors: Hashem Dehghanniri

Abstract:

Crime scripting is a simple and effective crime modeling technique that aims to improve understanding of security analysts about security and crime incidents. Low-quality scripts provide a wrong, incomplete, or sophisticated understanding of the crime commission process, which oppose the purpose of their application, e.g., identifying effective and cost-efficient situational crime prevention (SCP) measures. One important and overlooked factor in generating quality scripts is the crime scripting method. This study investigates the problems within the existing crime scripting practices and proposes a crime scripting approach that contributes to generating quality crime scripts. It was validated by experienced crime scripters. This framework helps analysts develop better crime scripts and contributes to their effective application, e.g., SCP measures identification or policy-making.

Keywords: Attack modeling, crime commission process, crime script, situational crime prevention.

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Authors: M. M. Isa, R. Abd-Rahman, H. H. Goh

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A compound parabolic concentrator (CPC) is a wellknown non-imaging concentrator that will concentrate the solar radiation onto receiver (PV cell). One of disadvantage of CPC is has tall and narrow height compared to its diameter entry aperture area. Therefore, for economic reason, a truncation had been done by removed from the top of the full height CPC. This also will lead to the decreases of concentration ratio but it will be negligible. In this paper, the flux distribution of untruncated and truncated 2-D hollow compound parabolic trough concentrator (hCPTC) design is presented. The untruncated design has initial height H=193.4mm with concentration ratio C_(2-D)=4. This paper presents the optical simulation of compound parabolic trough concentrator using raytracing software TracePro. Results showed that, after the truncation, the height of CPC reduced 45% from initial height with the geometrical concentration ratio only decrease 10%. Thus, the cost of reflector and material dielectric usage can be saved especially at manufacturing site.

Keywords: Compound parabolic trough concentrator, optical modelling, ray-tracing analysis.

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Authors: Shahla Shoghian, Maryam Kouzehgar

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The main objective of this paper is applying a comparison between the Wolf Pack Search (WPS) as a newly introduced intelligent algorithm with several other known algorithms including Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Shuffled Frog Leaping (SFL), Binary and Continues Genetic algorithms. All algorithms are applied on two benchmark cost functions. The aim is to identify the best algorithm in terms of more speed and accuracy in finding the solution, where speed is measured in terms of function evaluations. The simulation results show that the SFL algorithm with less function evaluations becomes first if the simulation time is important, while if accuracy is the significant issue, WPS and PSO would have a better performance.

Keywords: Wolf Pack Search, Particle Swarm Optimization, Continues Genetic Algorithm, Binary Genetic Algorithm, Shuffled Frog Leaping, Optimization.

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Authors: Guohua Cao, Xu Dong

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X-ray Fluorescence Molecular Imaging (XFMI) holds great promise as a low-cost molecular imaging modality for biomedical applications with high chemical sensitivity. However, for in vivo biomedical applications, a key technical bottleneck is the relatively low chemical sensitivity of XFMI, especially at a reasonably low radiation dose. In laboratory x-ray source based XFMI, one of the main factors that limits the chemical sensitivity of XFMI is the scattered x-rays. We will present our latest findings on improving the chemical sensitivity of XFMI using excitation beam spectrum optimization. XFMI imaging experiments on two mouse-sized phantoms were conducted at three different excitation beam spectra. Our results show that the minimum detectable concentration (MDC) of iodine can be readily increased by five times via excitation spectrum optimization. Findings from this investigation could find use for in vivo pre-clinical small-animal XFMI in the future.

Keywords: Molecular imaging, X-ray fluorescence, chemical sensitivity, X-ray scattering.

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Authors: Young-Il Kim, Bong-Jae Yi, Jae-Ju Song, Jin-Ho Shin, Jung-Il Lee

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Firstly, research and development on RFID focuses on manufacturing and retail sectors, because it can improve supply chain efficiency. But, now a variety of field is considered the next research area for Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). Although RFID is infancy, RFID technology has great potential in power industry to significantly reduce cost, and improve quality of power supply. To complement the limitation of RFID, we adopt the WSN (Wireless Sensor Network) technology. However, relevant experience is limited, the challenge will be to derive requirement from business practice and to determine whether it is possible or not. To explore this issue, we conduct a case study on implementing power facility management system using RFID/WSN in Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO). In this paper we describe requirement from power industry. And we introduce design and implementation of the test bed.

Keywords: Power Facility Management, RFID/WSN, Transmission Tower, Underground Tunnel, ZigBee.

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Authors: Kashif Laeeq, Zubair A. Shaikh

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The paradigm of education is drastically changing from conventional to e-learning model. Due to ease of learning with various other benefits, several educational institutions are adopting the e-learning models. Some institutions are still willing to transform their educational system on to e-learning, but due to limited resources, they are still compromising on the old traditional system. The cloud computing could be one of the best solutions to overcome this problem by providing hardware, software, and infrastructure resources with cost efficient manner. The adoption of cloud computing in education will bring revolution in this paradigm. This paper introduces various positive features of e-learning and presents a way how cloud computing technology can be provisioned e-learning model. This paper also investigates the numerous challenges and opportunities that would be observed in cloud computing adoption in e-learning domain. The concept and knowledge present in this paper may create a new direction of research in the domain of cloud-based e-learning.

Keywords: Cloud-based e-learning, e-learning, cloud computing application, smart learning.

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Authors: Siqing Chen

Abstract:

The vast rural landscape in the southern United States is conspicuously characterized by the hedgerow trees or groves. The patchwork landscape of fields surrounded by high hedgerows is a traditional and familiar feature of the American countryside. Hedgerows are in effect linear strips of trees, groves, or woodlands, which are often critical habitats for wildlife and important for the visual quality of the landscape. As landscape interfaces, hedgerows define the spaces in the landscape, give the landscape life and meaning, and enrich ecologies and cultural heritages of the American countryside. Although hedgerows were originally intended as fences and to mark property and townland boundaries, they are not merely the natural or man-made additions to the landscape--they have gradually become “naturalized" into the landscape, deeply rooted in the rural culture, and now formed an important component of the southern American rural environment. However, due to the ever expanding real estate industry and high demand for new residential development, substantial areas of authentic hedgerow landscape in the southern United States are being urbanized. Using Hudson Farm as an example, this study illustrated guidelines of how hedgerows can be integrated into town planning as green infrastructure and landscape interface to innovate and direct sustainable land use, and suggest ways in which such vernacular landscapes can be preserved and integrated into new development without losing their contextual inspiration.

Keywords: Hedgerow, Town planning, Sustainable design, Ecological infrastructure

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Authors: T. Sattarpour, D. Nazarpour

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This paper investigates the effect of simultaneous placement of DGs and smart meters (SMs), on voltage profile improvement in active distribution networks (ADNs). A substantial center of attention has recently been on responsive loads initiated in power system problem studies such as distributed generations (DGs). Existence of responsive loads in active distribution networks (ADNs) would have undeniable effect on sizing and siting of DGs. For this reason, an optimal framework is proposed for sizing and siting of DGs and SMs in ADNs. SMs are taken into consideration for the sake of successful implementing of demand response programs (DRPs) such as direct load control (DLC) with end-side consumers. Looking for voltage profile improvement, the optimization procedure is solved by genetic algorithm (GA) and tested on IEEE 33-bus distribution test system. Different scenarios with variations in the number of DG units, individual or simultaneous placing of DGs and SMs, and adaptive power factor (APF) mode for DGs to support reactive power have been established. The obtained results confirm the significant effect of DRPs and APF mode in determining the optimal size and site of DGs to be connected in ADN resulting to the improvement of voltage profile as well.

Keywords: Active distribution network (ADN), distributed generations (DGs), smart meters (SMs), demand response programs (DRPs), adaptive power factor (APF).

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Authors: Surender Kumar Soni

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Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are wireless networks consisting of number of tiny, low cost and low power sensor nodes to monitor various physical phenomena like temperature, pressure, vibration, landslide detection, presence of any object, etc. The major limitation in these networks is the use of nonrechargeable battery having limited power supply. The main cause of energy consumption WSN is communication subsystem. This paper presents an efficient grid formation/clustering strategy known as Grid based level Clustering and Aggregation of Data (GCAD). The proposed clustering strategy is simple and scalable that uses low duty cycle approach to keep non-CH nodes into sleep mode thus reducing energy consumption. Simulation results demonstrate that our proposed GCAD protocol performs better in various performance metrics.

Keywords: Ad hoc network, Cluster, Grid base clustering, Wireless sensor network.

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Authors: X. Gumara Rigol, I. Martínez de Apellaniz Anzuola, A. Garcia Serrano, A. Franzi Cros, O. Vidal Calbet, A. Al Maruf

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Traditional federated architectures for data warehousing work well when corporations have existing regional data warehouses and there is a need to aggregate data at a global level. Schibsted Media Group has been maturing from a decentralised organisation into a more globalised one and needed to build both some of the regional data warehouses for some brands at the same time as the global one. In this paper, we present the architectural alternatives studied and why a custom federated approach was the notable recommendation to go further with the implementation. Although the data warehouses are logically federated, the implementation uses a single database system which presented many advantages like: cost reduction and improved data access to global users allowing consumers of the data to have a common data model for detailed analysis across different geographies and a flexible layer for local specific needs in the same place.

Keywords: Data integration, data warehousing, federated architecture, online analytical processing.

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Authors: M. C. Proença

Abstract:

The tools described in this paper enable the location of burned areas where took place the annihilation of natural habitats and establishes a baseline for major changes in forest ecosystems during recovery. Moreover, the result allows the follow up of the surface fuel loading, allowing the evaluation and guidance of restoration measures to remote areas by phased time planning. This case study implements the evaluation of burned areas that suffered successive wildfires in Portugal mainland during the summer of 2017, killing more than 60 people. The goal is to show that this evaluation can be done with remote sense data free of charges in a simple laptop, with open-source software, describing the not-so-simple methodology step by step, to make it accessible for local workers in the areas attained, where the availability of information is essential for the immediate planning of mitigation measures, such as restoring road access, allocate funds for the recovery of human dwellings and assess further needs for restoration of the ecological system. Wildfires also devastate forest ecosystems having a direct impact on vegetation cover and killing or driving away the animal population, besides loss of all crops in rural areas that are essential as local resources. The economic interests are also attained, as the pinewood burned becomes useless for the noblest applications, so its value decreases, and resin extraction ends for several years.

Keywords: Image processing, remote sensing, wildfires, burned areas, SENTINEL-2.

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Authors: S.C. Chin, N. Shafiq, M.F. Nuruddin

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In the modern construction practices, industrial wastes or by-products are largely used as raw materials in cement and concrete. These impart many benefits to the environment and bringabout an economic impact because the cost of waste disposal is constantly increasing due to strict environmental regulations. It was reported in literature that the leakage of oil onto concrete element in older cement grinding unit resulted in concrete with greater resistance to freezing and thawing. This effect was thought to be similar to adding an air-entraining chemical admixture to concrete. This paper presents an investigation on the load deflection behaviour and crack patterns of reinforced concrete (RC) beams subjected to four point loading. Ten 120x260x1900 mm beams were cast with 100% ordinary Portland cement (OPC) concrete, 20% fly ash (FA) and 20% rice husk ash (RHA) blended cement concrete. 0.15% dosage of admixtures (used engine oil, new engine oil, and superplasticizer) was used throughout the experiment. Results show that OPC and OPC/RHA RC beams containing used engine oil and superplasticizer exhibit higher capacity, 18-26% than their corresponding control mix.

Keywords: by-products, RC beams, superplasticizer, used engine oil

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Authors: P. M. Natarajan, Shambhu Kallolikar, S. Ganesh

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By size and volume of water, Ganges River basin is the biggest among the fourteen major river basins in India. By Hindu’s faith, it is the main ‘holy river’ in this nation. But, of late, the pollution load, both domestic and industrial sources are deteriorating the surface and groundwater as well as land resources and hence the environment of the Ganges River basin is under threat. Seeing this scenario, the Indian government began to reclaim this river by two Ganges Action Plans I and II since 1986 by spending Rs. 2,747.52 crores ($457.92 million). But the result was no improvement in the water quality of the river and groundwater and environment even after almost three decades of reclamation, and hence now the New Indian Government is taking extra care to rejuvenate this river and allotted Rs. 2,037 cores ($339.50 million) in 2014 and Rs. 20,000 crores ($3,333.33 million) in 2015. The reasons for the poor water quality and stinking environment even after three decades of reclamation of the river are either no treatment/partial treatment of the sewage. Hence, now the authors are suggesting a tertiary level treatment standard of sewages of all sources and origins of the Ganges River basin and recycling the entire treated water for nondomestic uses. At 20million litres per day (MLD) capacity of each sewage treatment plant (STP), this basin needs about 2020 plants to treat the entire sewage load. Cost of the STPs is Rs. 3,43,400 million ($5,723.33 million) and the annual maintenance cost is Rs. 15,352 million ($255.87 million). The advantages of the proposed exercise are: we can produce a volume of 1,769.52 million m³ of biogas. Since biogas is energy, can be used as a fuel, for any heating purpose, such as cooking. It can also be used in a gas engine to convert the energy in the gas into electricity and heat. It is possible to generate about 3,539.04 million kilowatt electricity per annum from the biogas generated in the process of wastewater treatment in Ganges basin. The income generation from electricity works out to Rs 10,617.12million ($176.95million). This power can be used to bridge the supply and demand gap of energy in the power hungry villages where 300million people are without electricity in India even today, and to run these STPs as well. The 664.18 million tonnes of sludge generated by the treatment plants per annum can be used in agriculture as manure with suitable amendments. By arresting the pollution load the 187.42 cubic kilometer (km³) of groundwater potential of the Ganges River basin could be protected from deterioration. Since we can recycle the sewage for non-domestic purposes, about 14.75km³ of fresh water per annum can be conserved for future use. The total value of the water saving per annum is Rs.22,11,916million ($36,865.27million) and each citizen of Ganges River basin can save Rs. 4,423.83/ ($73.73) per annum and Rs. 12.12 ($0.202) per day by recycling the treated water for nondomestic uses. Further the environment of this basin could be kept clean by arresting the foul smell as well as the 3% of greenhouse gages emission from the stinking waterways and land. These are the ways to reclaim the waterways of Ganges River basin from deterioration.

Keywords: Holy Ganges River, lifeline of India, wastewater treatment and management, making Ganges permanently holy.

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Authors: Salvatore L., Pires B., Campos M. C. M., De Souza Jr M. B.

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It is estimated that the total cost of abnormal conditions to US process industries is around $20 billion dollars in annual losses. The hydrotreatment (HDT) of diesel fuel in petroleum refineries is a conversion process that leads to high profitable economical returns. However, this is a difficult process to control because it is operated continuously, with high hydrogen pressures and it is also subject to disturbances in feed properties and catalyst performance. So, the automatic detection of fault and diagnosis plays an important role in this context. In this work, a hybrid approach based on neural networks together with a pos-processing classification algorithm is used to detect faults in a simulated HDT unit. Nine classes (8 faults and the normal operation) were correctly classified using the proposed approach in a maximum time of 5 minutes, based on on-line data process measurements.

Keywords: Fault detection, hydrotreatment, hybrid systems, neural networks.

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Authors: A. R. Binesh, S. Hossainpour

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Due to the stringent legislation for emission of diesel engines and also increasing demand on fuel consumption, the importance of detailed 3D simulation of fuel injection, mixing and combustion have been increased in the recent years. In the present work, FIRE code has been used to study the detailed modeling of spray and mixture formation in a Caterpillar heavy-duty diesel engine. The paper provides an overview of the submodels implemented, which account for liquid spray atomization, droplet secondary break-up, droplet collision, impingement, turbulent dispersion and evaporation. The simulation was performed from intake valve closing (IVC) to exhaust valve opening (EVO). The predicted in-cylinder pressure is validated by comparing with existing experimental data. A good agreement between the predicted and experimental values ensures the accuracy of the numerical predictions collected with the present work. Predictions of engine emissions were also performed and a good quantitative agreement between measured and predicted NOx and soot emission data were obtained with the use of the present Zeldowich mechanism and Hiroyasu model. In addition, the results reported in this paper illustrate that the numerical simulation can be one of the most powerful and beneficial tools for the internal combustion engine design, optimization and performance analysis.

Keywords: Diesel engine, Combustion, Pollution, CFD.

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Authors: Andreea Maier, Diana Nicoară, Dorin Maier, Maria-Mihaela Suărăsan, Alexandra Anastasiu

Abstract:

Innovation is becoming more and more important in modern society. There are a lot of researches on different kinds of innovation but marketing innovation is one kind of innovation that has not been studied frequently before. Marketing innovation is defined as a new way in which companies can market themselves to potential or existing customers. The study shows some key elements for marketing innovation that are worth paying attention to when implementing marketing innovation projects. Examples of such key elements are: paying attention to the neglected market, suitable market segmentatio reliable market information, public relationship, increased customer value, combination of market factors, explore different marketing channels and the use of technology in combination with what? Beside the key elements for marketing innovation, we also present some risks that may occur, such as cost, market uncertainty, information leakage, imitation and overdependence on experience. By proposing a set of indicators to measure marketing innovation, the article offers solutions for marketing innovation implementation so that any organization can achieve optimal results.

Keywords: Innovation, marketing innovation, performance in an organization.

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Authors: Margareta Ilkova, Petr Teply

Abstract:

The article deals with dividends and their distribution from investors from a theoretical point of view. Some studies try to analyzed the reaction of the market on the dividend announcement and found out the change of dividend policy is associated with abnormal returns around the dividend announcement date. Another researches directly questioned the investors about their dividend preference and beliefs. Investors want the dividend from many reasons (e.g. some of them explain the dividend preference by the existence of transaction cost; investors prefer the dividend today, because there is less risky; the managers have private information about the firm). The most controversial theory of dividend policy was developed by Modigliani and Miller (1961) who demonstrated that in the perfect and complete capital markets the dividend policy is irrelevant and the value of the company is independent of its payout policy. Nevertheless, in the real world the capital markets are imperfect, because of asymmetric information, transaction costs, incomplete contracting possibilities and taxes.

Keywords: dividend distribution, taxation, payout policy, investor, Modigliani and Miller theorem

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Authors: Nripjit, Anand K Tyagi, Nirmal Singh

Abstract:

The present work consecutively on synthesis and characterization of composites, Al/Al alloy A 384.1 as matrix in which the main ingredient as Al/Al-5% MgO alloy based metal matrix composite. As practical implications the low cost processing route for the fabrication of Al alloy A 384.1 and operational difficulties of presently available manufacturing processes based in liquid manipulation methods. As all new developments, complete understanding of the influence of processing variables upon the final quality of the product. And the composite is applied comprehensively to the acquaintance for achieving superiority of information concerning the specific heat measurement of a material through the aid of thermographs. Products are evaluated concerning relative particle size and mechanical behavior under tensile strength. Furthermore, Taguchi technique was employed to examine the experimental optimum results are achieved, owing to effectiveness of this approach.

Keywords: MMC, Thermographs, Tensile strength, Taguchi technique, Optimal parameters

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Authors: E. T. L. Cöuras Ford, V. A. C. Vale, J. U. L. Mendes, R. M. Nascimento

Abstract:

The great majority of the applications of thermal isolation in the strip of drops and averages temperatures (up to 200ºC), it is made of materials aggressive nature, such an as glass wool, rock wool, polystyrene, EPS among others. Such materials, in spite of the effectiveness in the retention of the flow of heat, possess considerable cost and when discarded they are long years to be to decompose. In that context, trying to adapt the world politics the about of the preservation of the environment, a study began with intention of developing a material composite, with properties of thermal, originating from insulating industrial residues. In this research, the behavior of the composite was analyzed, as submitted the fire. For this, the reaction rehearsals were accomplished to the fire for the composites 2:1; 1:1; 1:2 and for the Latex, based in the "con" experiment in agreement with the norm ASTM - E 1334 - 90. As consequence, in function of the answers of the system was possible to be observed to the acting of each mixture proportion.

Keywords: Composite, Latex, Reaction to the fire.

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