Search results for: government consumption spending

Authors: Shuen-Tai Wang, Ying-Chuan Chen, Yu-Ching Lin

Abstract:

There has been renewal of interest in the relation between Green IT and cloud computing in recent years. Cloud computing has to be a highly elastic environment which provides stable services to users. The growing use of cloud computing facilities has caused marked energy consumption, putting negative pressure on electricity cost of computing center or data center. Each year more and more network devices, storages and computers are purchased and put to use, but it is not just the number of computers that is driving energy consumption upward. We could foresee that the power consumption of cloud computing facilities will double, triple, or even more in the next decade. This paper aims at resource allocation and scheduling technologies that are short of or have not well developed yet to reduce energy utilization in cloud computing platform. In particular, our approach relies on recalling services dynamically onto appropriate amount of the machines according to user’s requirement and temporarily shutting down the machines after finish in order to conserve energy. We present initial work on integration of resource and power management system that focuses on reducing power consumption such that they suffice for meeting the minimizing quality of service required by the cloud computing platform.

Keywords: Cloud computing, energy utilization, power consumption, resource allocation.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1442

Authors: W. Munyoka, F. M. Manzira

Abstract:

The purpose of this study is to analyze how varying alignment of e-Government policies in four countries in Sub-Saharan Africa Region, namely South Africa, Seychelles, Mauritius and Cape Verde lead to the success or failure of e-Government; and what should be done to ensure positive alignment that lead to e-Government project growth. In addition, the study aims to understand how various governments’ efforts in e-Government awareness campaign strategies, international cooperation, functional literacy and anticipated organizational change can influence implementation.

This study extensively explores contemporary research undertaken in the field of e-Government and explores the actual respective national ICT policies, strategies and implemented e-Government projects for in-depth comprehension of the status core. Data is analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively to reach a conclusion.

The study found that resounding successes in strategic e-Government alignment was achieved in Seychelles, Mauritius, South Africa and Cape Verde - (Ranked number 1 to 4 respectively).

The implications of the study is that policy makers in developing countries should put mechanisms in place for constant monitoring and evaluation of project implementation in line with ICT policies to ensure that e-Government projects reach maturity levels and do not die mid-way implementation as often noticed in many countries. The study recommends that countries within the region should make consented collaborative efforts and synergies with the private sector players and international donor agencies to achieve the implementation part of the set ICT policies.

Keywords: E-Government, ICT-Policy Alignment, Implementation, Sub-Saharan Africa.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2340

Authors: Affordability, Expenditure Patterns towards Sustainable Consumption in Malaysia

Abstract:

Safe drinking water is needed for survival. Households have to pay the water bill monthly. However, lower income households are sometimes unable to afford the cost. This study examines water access and affordability among households in Malaysia and the determinants of water affordability using cross-sectional data and multiple regression. The paper expects that the bill for basic water consumption is inversely related to average income. This means that policy makers need to redesign the water tariff to improve the quality of life of lower income households.

Keywords: Affordability, households, income, water tariff.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1073

Authors: Mohd Zin Kandar, Mohd Sabere Sulaiman, Yong Razidah Rashid, Dilshan Remaz Ossen, Aminatuzuhariah MAbdullah, Lim Yaik Wah, Mansour Nikpour

Abstract:

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in using daylight to save energy in buildings. In tropical regions, daylighting is always an energy saver. On the other hand, daylight provides visual comfort. According to standards, it shows that many criteria should be taken into consideration in order to have daylight utilization and visual comfort. The current standard in Malaysia, MS 1525 does not provide sufficient guideline. Hence, more research is needed on daylight performance. If architects do not consider daylight design, it not only causes inconvenience in working spaces but also causes more energy consumption as well as environmental pollution. This research had surveyed daylight performance in 5 selected office buildings from different area of Malaysian through experimental method. Several parameters of daylight quality such as daylight factor, surface luminance and surface luminance ratio were measured in different rooms in each building. The result of this research demonstrated that most of the buildings were not designed for daylight utilization. Therefore, it is very important that architects follow the daylight design recommendation to reduce consumption of electric power for artificial lighting while the sufficient quality of daylight is available.

Keywords: Daylight factor, Field measurement, Daylighting quality, Tropical

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3482

Authors: Jukka Heinonen

Abstract:

Higher density reduces distances, private car dependency and thus reduces greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). As a result, increased density has been given a central role among urban development targets. However, it is not just travel behavior that changes along with density. Rather, the consumption patterns, or overall lifestyles, change along with changing urban structure, particularly with changing housing types and consumption opportunities. Furthermore, elevated consumption of services, more frequent flying and less intra-household sharing have been shown to potentially outweigh the gains from reduced driving in more dense urban settlements. In this study, the geography of carbon footprints (CFs) in California is analyzed paying close attention to the household size differences and the resulting economies-of-scale advantages and disadvantages. A hybrid life cycle assessment (LCA) framework is employed together with consumer expenditure data to assess the CFs. According to the study, small urban households have the highest CFs in California. Their transport related emissions are significantly lower than those of the residents of less urbanized areas, but higher emissions from other consumption categories, together with the low degree of sharing of goods, overweigh the gains. Two functional units, per capita and per household, are used to analyze the CFs and to demonstrate the importance of household size. The lifestyle impacts visible through the consumption data are also discussed. The study suggests that there are still significant gaps in our understanding of the premises of low-carbon human settlements.

Keywords: Carbon footprint, life cycle assessment, consumption, lifestyle, household size, economies-of-scale.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1226

Authors: Jenny Paola Forero Pachón, Sonia Cristina Gamboa Sarmiento, Luis Carlos Gómez Flórez

Abstract:

The Colombian government has defined an e-government strategy to take advantage of Information Technologies (IT) in order to contribute to the building of a more efficient, transparent and participative State that provides better services to citizens and businesses. In this regard, the Justice sector is one of the government sectors where IT has generated more expectation considering that the country has a judicial processes backlog. This situation has led to the search for alternative forms of access to justice that speed up the process while providing a low cost for citizens. To this end, the Colombian government has authorized the use of Alternative Dispute Resolution methods (ADR), a remedy where disputes can be resolved more quickly compared to judicial processes while facilitating greater communication between the parties, without recourse to judicial authority. One of these methods is conciliation, which includes a special modality that takes advantage of IT for the development of itself known as virtual conciliation. With this option the conciliation is supported by information systems, applications or platforms and communications are provided through it. This paper evaluates the level of maturity in how the service of virtual conciliation is under the framework of this strategy. This evaluation is carried out considering Shahkooh's 5-phase model for e-government. As a result, it is evident that in the context of conciliation, maturity does not reach the necessary level in the model so that it can be considered as virtual conciliation; therefore, it is necessary to define strategies to maximize the potential of IT in this context.

Keywords: Alternative dispute resolution, e-government, evaluation of maturity, Shahkooh model, virtual conciliation.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 948

Authors: N. Mahendran, R. Madhuranthi

Abstract:

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs), are constantly in demand to process information more rapidly with less energy and area cost. Presently, processor based solutions have difficult to achieve high processing speed with low-power consumption. This paper presents a simple and accurate data processing scheme for low power wireless sensor node, based on reduced number of processing element (PE). The presented model provides a simple recursive structure (SRS) to process the sampled data in the wireless sensor environment and to reduce the power consumption in wireless sensor node. Based on this model, to process the incoming samples and produce a smaller amount of data sufficient to reconstruct the original signal. The ModelSim simulator used to simulate SRS structure. Functional simulation is carried out for the validation of the presented architecture. Xilinx Power Estimator (XPE) tool is used to measure the power consumption. The experimental results show the average power consumption of 91 mW; this is 42% improvement compared to the folded tree architecture.

Keywords: Power consumption, energy efficiency, low power WSN node, recursive structure, sleep/wake scheduling.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1014

Authors: Victoria A. Okwoche, Benjamin C. Asogwa

Abstract:

This paper analysed the food security situation among Nigerian rural farmers. Data collected on 202 rural farmers from Benue State were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The study revealed that majority of the respondents (60.83%) had medium dietary diversity. Furthermore, household daily calorie requirement for the food secure households was 10,723 and the household daily calorie consumption was 12,598, with a surplus index of 0.04. The food security index was 1.16. The Household daily per capita calorie consumption was 3,221.2. For the food insecure households, the household daily calorie requirement was 20,213 and the household daily calorie consumption was 17,393. The shortfall index was 0.14. The food security index was 0.88. The Household daily per capita calorie consumption was 2,432.8. The most commonly used coping strategies during food stress included intercropping (99.2%), reliance on less preferred food (98.1%), limiting portion size at meal times (85.8%) and crop diversification (70.8%).

Keywords: Analysis, food security, rural areas, farmers, Nigeria.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2912

Authors: Eshagh Rasouli Sarabi, Mir Saeed Moosavi

Abstract:

In Iran, due to abundance of energy resources, energy consumption is extraordinarily higher than international standards and transportation sector is considered to be one of the major consumers of energy. Moreover, air pollution in urban areas as a result of high dependence on private vehicle and lower standards of vehicles, high subsidies spent on fuel and time waste due to traffic congestion in urban areas all have led to speculations on new strategies and policies in order to control energy consumption in transportation sector. These strategies and policies will be introduced in this paper and their consequences will be analyzed with consideration to socio-economic factors affecting the urban society of Iran. Besides, the intention is to suggest and analyze new approaches such as broader application of public transportation system, demand management in transport sector, replacement of deteriorated vehicles, quality improvement in car manufacture and introduction of substitute fuels.

Keywords: Consumption, energy, fuel, transportation.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1625

Authors: Idil Kanter Otcu

Abstract:

Nowadays, due to the growing problems of energy supply and the drastic reduction of natural non-renewable resources, the development of new applications in the energy sector and steps towards greater efficiency in energy consumption are required. Since buildings account for a large share of energy consumption, increasing the structural density of buildings causes an increase in energy consumption. This increase in energy consumption means that energy efficiency approaches to building design and the integration of new systems using emerging technologies become necessary in order to curb this consumption. As new systems for productive usage of generated energy are developed, buildings that require less energy to operate, with rational use of resources, need to be developed. One solution for reducing the energy requirements of buildings is through landscape planning, design and application. Requirements such as heating, cooling and lighting can be met with lower energy consumption through planting design, which can help to achieve more efficient and rational use of resources. Within this context, rather than a planting design which considers only the ecological and aesthetic features of plants, these considerations should also extend to spatial organization whereby the relationship between the site and open spaces in the context of climatic elements and planting designs are taken into account. In this way, the planting design can serve an additional purpose. In this study, a landscape design which takes into consideration location, local climate morphology and solar angle will be illustrated on a sample building project.

Keywords: Energy efficiency, landscape design, plant design, xeriscape landscape.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1804

Authors: Mohammad Amjad, Muhammad Iqbal Zafar, Ashfaq Ahmed Maan, Muhammad Tayyab Kashif

Abstract:

Obesity is an abnormal physical condition where an increased and undesirable fat accumulates in the human body. Obesity is an international phenomenon. In the present study, 12 schools were randomly selected from each district considering the areas i.e. Elite Private Schools in the private sector, Government schools in urban areas and Government schools in rural areas. Interviews were conducted with male students studying in grade 5 to grade 9 in each school. The sample size was 600 students; 300 from Faisalabad district and 300 from Rawalpindi district in Pakistan. A well-structured and pre-tested questionnaire was used for data collection. The calibrated scales were used to attain the heights and weights of the respondents. Obesity of school-going children depends on family types, family size, family history, junk food consumption, mother’s education, weekly time spent in walking, and sports facility at school levels. Academic performance, physical health and psychological health of school going children are affected with obesity. Concrete steps and policies could minimize the incidence of obesity in children in Pakistan.

Keywords: BMI, cardiovascular disease, fast food, morbidity and overweight.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 928

Authors: H. A. Bekhet, T. Yasmin

Abstract:

The aim of this paper is to examine the relationship among CO₂ per capita emissions, energy consumption, economic growth and bilateral trade between Singapore and Malaysia for the 1970-2011 period. ARDL model and Granger causality tests are employed for the analysis.  Results of bound F-statistics suggest that long-run  relationship exists between CO₂ per capita (PCO₂) and its determinants. The EKC hypothesis is not supported in Malaysia. Carbon emissions are mainly determined by energy consumption in the short and long run. While, exports to Singapore is a significant variable in explaining PCO₂ emissions in Malaysia in long-run. Furthermore, we find a unidirectional causal relationship running from economic growth to PCO₂ emissions.

Keywords: ADRL Bound Test, Bilateral trade, CO2 emission, Environmental Kuznets Curve, Energy consumption, Malaysia.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2651

Authors: Pardeep Singh, Sanjay Sharma, Parvinder S. Sandhu

Abstract:

This work aims to reduce the read power consumption as well as to enhance the stability of the SRAM cell during the read operation. A new 10-transisor cell is proposed with a new read scheme to minimize the power consumption within the memory core. It has separate read and write ports, thus cell read stability is significantly improved. A 16Kb SRAM macro operating at 1V supply voltage is demonstrated in 65 nm CMOS process. Its read power consumption is reduced to 24% of the conventional design. The new cell also has lower leakage current due to its special bit-line pre-charge scheme. As a result, it is suitable for low-power mobile applications where power supply is restricted by the battery.

Keywords: A 16Kb 10T-SRAM, 4x Read-Power Reduction

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1945

Authors: Pavel Adámek

Abstract:

The concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the Czech Republic has evolved notably during the last few years and an issue that started as an interest- and motive-based activity for businesses is becoming more commonplace. Governments have a role to play in ensuring that corporations behave according to the rules and norms of society and can legislate, foster, collaborate with businesses and endorse good practice in order to facilitate the development of CSR. The purpose of this paper is to examine the opportunities and options of CSR in government policy and research its relevance to a business sector. An increasing number of companies is engaging in responsible activities, the public awareness of CSR is rising, and customers are giving higher importance to CSR of companies in their choice. By drawing on existing CSR approach in Czech and understanding of CSR are demonstrated. The paper provides an overview, more detailed government approach of CSR.

Keywords: Approach, corporate social responsibility, government policy, instruments.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2232

Authors: Wernhuar Tarng, Kun-Jie Huang, Li-Zhong Deng, Kun-Rong Hsie, Mingteh Chen

Abstract:

In recent years, the research in wireless sensor network has increased steadily, and many studies were focusing on reducing energy consumption of sensor nodes to extend their lifetimes. In this paper, the issue of energy consumption is investigated and two adaptive mechanisms are proposed to extend the network lifetime. This study uses high-energy-first scheme to determine cluster heads for data transmission. Thus, energy consumption in each cluster is balanced and network lifetime can be extended. In addition, this study uses cluster merging and dynamic routing mechanisms to further reduce energy consumption during data transmission. The simulation results show that the proposed method can effectively extend the lifetime of wireless sensor network, and it is suitable for different base station locations.

Keywords: Wireless sensor network, high-energy-first scheme, adaptive mechanisms, network lifetime

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1537

Authors: Sandesh Achar

Abstract:

The cloud computing industry has set new goals for better service delivery and deployment, so anyone can access services such as computation, application, and storage anytime. Cloud computing promises new possibilities for approaching sustainable solutions to deploy and advance their services in this distributed environment. This work explores energy-efficient approaches and how cloud-based architecture can reduce energy consumption levels amongst enterprises leveraging cloud computing services. Adopting cloud-based networking, database, and server machines provide a comprehensive means of achieving the potential gains in energy efficiency that cloud computing offers. In energy-efficient cloud computing, virtualization is one aspect that can integrate several technologies to achieve consolidation and better resource utilization. Moreover, the Green Cloud Architecture for cloud data centers is discussed in terms of cost, performance, and energy consumption, and appropriate solutions for various application areas are provided.

Keywords: Greener Cloud, cloud computing, energy efficiency, energy consumption, metadata tags, Green Cloud Advisor.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 972

Authors: Mansour Nikpour, Mohd Zin kandar, Mohsen Ghasemi, Hossein Fallah

Abstract:

Over half of the total electricity consumption is used in buildings. Air-conditioning and electric lighting are the two main resources of electricity consumption in high rise buildings. One way to reduce electricity consumption would be to limit heat gain into buildings, therefore reduce the demand for air-conditioning during hot summer months especially in hot regions. On the other hand natural daylight can be used to reduce the use of electricity for artificial lighting. In this paper effective factors on minimizing heat gain and achieving required day light were reviewed .As daylight always accompanied by solar heat gain. Also interactions between heat gain and daylight were discussed through previous studies and equations which are related to heat gain and day lighting especially in high rise buildings. As a result importance of building-s form and its component on energy consumption in buildings were clarified.

Keywords: High rise buildings, energy demand, day lighting, heat gain.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2908

Authors: Aljabryn Dalal Hamad

Abstract:

The present explanatory study concerns with the relation between Diabetes Mellitus and Food Balance in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia during 2005-2010, using published data. Results illustrated that Saudi citizen daily protein consumption (DPC) during 2005-2007 (g/capita/day) is higher than the average global consumption level of protein with 15.27%, daily fat consumption (DFC) with 24.56% and daily energy consumption (DEC) with 16.93% and increases than recommended level by International Nutrition Organizations (INO) with 56% for protein, 60.49% for fat and 27.37% for energy. On the other hand, DPC per capita in Saudi Arabia decreased during the period 2008-2010 from 88.3 to 82.36 gram/ day. Moreover, DFC per capita in Saudi Arabia decreased during the period 2008-2010 from 3247.90 to 3176.43 Cal/capita/ day, and daily energy consumption (DEC) of Saudi citizen increases than world consumption with 16.93%, whereas increases with 27.37% than INO. Despite this, DPC, DFC and DEC per capita in Saudi Arabia still higher than world mean. On the other side, results illustrated that the number of diabetic patients in Saudi Arabia during the same period (2005-2010). The curve of diabetic patient’s number in Saudi Arabia during 2005-2010 is regular ascending with increasing level ranged between 7.10% in 2005 and 12.44% in 2010. It is essential to devise Saudi National programs to educate the public about the relation of food balances and diabetes so it could be avoided, and provide citizens with healthy dietary balances tables.

Keywords: Diabetes Mellitus, Food Balance, Energy, Fat, Protein, Saudi Arabia.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1522

Authors: Elena C. Tamaş, Grațiela M. Țârlea, Gianni Flamaropol, Dragoș Hera

Abstract:

This article is referring to a comparative study regarding the electrical energy consumption for lighting on diverse types of big sizes commercial buildings built in Romania after 2007, having 3, 4, 5 versus 8, 9, 10 operational years. Some buildings have installed building management systems (BMS) to monitor also the lighting performances starting with the opening days till the present days but some have chosen only local meters to implement. Firstly, for each analyzed building, the total required energy power and the energy power consumption for lighting were calculated depending on the lamps number, the unit power and the average daily running hours. All objects and installations were chosen depending on the destination/location of the lighting (exterior parking or access, interior or covering parking, building interior and building perimeter). Secondly, to all lighting objects and installations, mechanical counters were installed, and to the ones linked to BMS there were installed the digital meters as well for a better monitoring. Some efficient solutions are proposed to improve the power consumption, for example the 1/3 lighting functioning for the covered and exterior parking lighting to those buildings if can be done. This type of lighting share can be performed on each level, especially on the night shifts. Another example is to use the dimmers to reduce the light level, depending on the executed work in the respective area, and a 30% power energy saving can be achieved. Using the right BMS to monitor, the energy consumption depending on the average operational daily hours and changing the non-performant unit lights with the ones having LED technology or economical ones might increase significantly the energy performances and reduce the energy consumption of the buildings.

Keywords: Lighting consumption, commercial buildings, maintenance, energy performances.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 977

Authors: K. Hardy, A. Maurushat

Abstract:

Policy makers are increasingly looking to make evidence-based decisions. Evidence-based decisions have historically used rigorous methodologies of empirical studies by research institutes, as well as less reliable immediate survey/polls often with limited sample sizes. As we move into the era of Big Data analytics, policy makers are looking to different methodologies to deliver reliable empirics in real-time. The question is not why did these people do this for the last 10 years, but why are these people doing this now, and if the this is undesirable, and how can we have an impact to promote change immediately. Big data analytics rely heavily on government data that has been released in to the public domain. The open data movement promises greater productivity and more efficient delivery of services; however, Australian government agencies remain reluctant to release their data to the general public. This paper considers the barriers to releasing government data as open data, and how these barriers might be overcome.

Keywords: Big data, open data, productivity, transparency.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1634

Authors: C. Malça, N. Alves, A. Mateus

Abstract:

This work was one of the tasks of the Manufacturing2Client project, whose objective was to develop a frontal deflector to be commercialized in the automotive industry, using new project and manufacturing methods. In this task, in particular, it was proposed to develop the ability to predict computationally the aerodynamic influence of flow in vehicles, in an effort to reduce fuel consumption in vehicles from class 3 to 8. With this aim, two deflector models were developed and their aerodynamic performance analyzed. The aerodynamic study was done using the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software Ansys CFX and allowed the calculation of the drag coefficient caused by the vehicle motion for the different configurations considered. Moreover, the reduction of diesel consumption and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions associated with the optimized deflector geometry could be assessed.

Keywords: Aerodynamic analysis, CFD, CO2 emissions, Drag coefficient, Frontal deflector, Fuel consumption.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2669

Authors: Giorgi Gaprindashvili

Abstract:

One of the best examples, in evolution of the public procurement, from post-soviet countries are reforms carried out in Georgia, which brought them close to international standards of procurement. In Georgia, public procurement legislation started functioning short after gaining independence. The reform has passed several stages and came in the form as it is today. It should also be noted, that countries with economy in transition, including Georgia, implemented all the reforms in public procurement based on recommendations and support of World Bank, the United Nations and other international organizations. The aim of first adopted law was regulation of the procurement process of budget-organizations, transparency and creation of competitive environment for private companies to access state funds legally. The priorities were identified quite clearly in the wording of the law, but operation/function of this law could not be reached on its level, because of some objective and subjective reasons. The high level of corruption in all levels of governance can be considered as a main obstacle reason and of course, it is natural, that it had direct impact on the procurement process, as well as on transparency and rational use of state funds. These circumstances were the reasons that reforms in this sphere continued, to improve procurement process, in particular, the first wave of reforms began after several years. Public procurement agency carried out reform with World Bank with main purpose of smartening the procurement legislation and its harmonization with international treaties and agreements. Also with the support of World Bank various activities were carried out to raise awareness of participants involved in procurement system. Further major changes in the legislation were filed bit later, which was also directed towards the improvement and smarten of the procurement process. The third wave of the reform more or less guaranteed the transparency of the procurement process, which later became the basis for the rational spending of state funds. The reform of the procurement system completely changed the procedures. Carried out reform in Georgia resulted in introducing new electronic tendering system, which benefit the transparency of the process, after this became the basis for the further development of a competitive environment, which become a prerequisite for the state rational spending. Increased number of supplier organizations participating in the procurement process resulted in reduction of the estimated cost and the actual cost. Assessment of the reforms in Georgia in the field of public procurement can be concluded, that proper regulation of the sector and relevant policy may proceed to rational and transparent spending of the budget from country’s state institutions. Also, the business sector has the opportunity to work in competitive market conditions and to make a preliminary analysis, which is a prerequisite for future strategy and development.

Keywords: Public Administration, Public Procurement, Reforms, Transparency.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2389

Authors: Priyanka Gupta, Paul Verma, Kerry Hourigan, Jayesh Bellare, Sameer Jadhav

Abstract:

Understanding the consumption and production of various metabolites of fibroblast conditioned media is needed for its proper and optimized use in expansion of pluripotent stem cells. For this purpose, we have used the HPLC method to analyse the consumption of glucose and the production of lactate over time by mouse embryonic fibroblasts. The experimental data have also been compared with mathematical model fits. 0.025 moles of lactate was produced after 72 hrs while the glucose concentration decreased from 0.017 moles to 0.011 moles. The mathematical model was able to predict the trends of glucose consumption and lactate production.

Keywords: Conditioned media, HPLC, metabolite analysis, mouse embryonic fibroblast.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2615

Authors: M.Hosseinghadiry, H. Mohammadi, M.Nadisenejani

Abstract:

with increasing circuits- complexity and demand to use portable devices, power consumption is one of the most important parameters these days. Full adders are the basic block of many circuits. Therefore reducing power consumption in full adders is very important in low power circuits. One of the most powerconsuming modules in full adders is XOR/XNOR circuit. This paper presents two new full adders based on two new logic approaches. The proposed logic approaches use one XOR or XNOR gate to implement a full adder cell. Therefore, delay and power will be decreased. Using two new approaches and two XOR and XNOR gates, two new full adders have been implemented in this paper. Simulations are carried out by HSPICE in 0.18μm bulk technology with 1.8V supply voltage. The results show that the ten-transistors proposed full adder has 12% less power consumption and is 5% faster in comparison to MB12T full adder. 9T is more efficient in area and is 24% better than similar 10T full adder in term of power consumption. The main drawback of the proposed circuits is output threshold loss problem.

Keywords: Full adder, XNOR, Low power, High performance, Very Large Scale Integrated Circuit.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2079

Authors: Chiung-Ju Huang, Yuan-Hong Ho

Abstract:

This study utilizes the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Fiscal Rules Dataset focusing on four specific fiscal rules such as expenditure rule, revenue rule, budget balance rule, and debt rule and five main characteristics of each fiscal rule those are monitoring, enforcement, coverage, legal basis, and escape clause to construct the Fiscal Rule Index for nine countries in the Asia-Pacific region from 1996 to 2015. After constructing the fiscal rule index for each country, we utilize the Panel Generalized Method of Moments (Panel GMM) by using the constructed fiscal rule index to examine the effectiveness of fiscal rules in reducing procyclicality. Empirical results show that national fiscal rules have a significantly negative impact on procyclicality of government expenditure. Additionally, stricter fiscal rules combined with high government effectiveness are effective in reducing procyclicality of government expenditure. Results of this study indicate that for nine Asia-Pacific countries, policymakers’ use of fiscal rules and government effectiveness to reducing procyclicality of fiscal policy are effective.

Keywords: Counter-cyclical policy, fiscal rules, government effectiveness, procyclical policy.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 825

Authors: A. A. Azemati, H. Hosseini, B. Shirkavand Hadavand

Abstract:

By using an adequate thermal barrier coating in buildings the energy saving will be happened. In this study, a range of wall paints with different absorption coefficient in different climates has been investigated. In order to study these effects, heating and cooling loads of a common building with different ordinary paints and paint with mineral coating have been calculated. The effect of building paint in different climatic condition was studied and comparison was done between ordinary paints and paint with mineral insulators in temperate climate to obtain optimized energy consumption. The results have been shown that coatings with inorganic micro particles as insulation reduce the energy consumption of buildings around 14%.

Keywords: Insulator, coating, climate, energy consumption.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1417

Authors: Bin Su

Abstract:

A hotel mainly uses its energy on water heating, space heating, refrigeration, space cooling, cooking, lighting and other building services. A number of 4-5 stars hotels in Auckland city are selected for this study. Comparing with the energy used for others, the energy used for the internal space thermal control (e.g. internal space heating) is more closely related to the hotel building itself. This study not only investigates relationship between annual energy (and winter energy) consumptions and building design data but also relationships between winter extra energy consumption and building design data. This study is to identify the major design factors that significantly impact hotel energy consumption for improving the future hotel design for energy efficient.

Keywords: Hotel building design, building energy, building passive design, energy efficiency.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 7976

Authors: Tamara Kelly

Abstract:

The past decade has witnessed a good opportunities for city development schemes in UK. The government encouraged restoration of city centers to comprise mixed use developments with high density residential apartments. Investments in regeneration areas were doing well according to the analyses of Property Databank (IPD). However, more recent analysis by IPD has shown that since 2007, property in regeneration areas has been more vulnerable to the market downturn than other types of investment property. The early stages of a property market downturn may be felt most in regeneration where funding, investor confidence and occupier demand would dissipate because the sector was considered more marginal or risky when development costs rise. Moreover, the Bank of England survey shows that lenders have sequentially tightened the availability of credit for commercial real estate since mid-2007. A sharp reduction in the willingness of banks to lend on commercial property was recorded. The credit crunch has already affected commercial property but its impact has been particularly severe in certain kinds of properties where residential developments are extremely difficult, in particular city centre apartments and buy-to-let markets. Commercial property – retail, industrial leisure and mixed use were also pressed, in Birmingham; tens of mixed use plots were built to replace old factories in the heart of the city. The purpose of these developments was to enable young professionals to work and live in same place. Thousands of people lost their jobs during the recession, moreover lending was more difficult and the future of many developments is unknown. The recession casts its shadow upon the society due to cuts in public spending by government, Inflation, rising tuition fees and high rise in unemployment generated anger and hatred was spreading among youth causing vandalism and riots in many cities. Recent riots targeted many mixed used development in the UK where banks, shops, restaurants and big stores were robbed and set into fire leaving residents with horror and shock. This paper examines the impact of the recession and riots on mixed use development in UK.

Keywords: Diversity, mixed use development, outdoor comfort, public realm, safe places, safety by design.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1622

Authors: Ida Rosada, Nurliani

Abstract:

Today, the number of women who seek additional income to help her husband is increasing. They do that in order to be able to express themselves in the midst of the family and society. Nonetheless, housewives are in charge of managing family’s income and prepare food for the family. The objective of this research is 1) to analyze the effect of the dual role of women to household income and 2) to analyze the effect of the dual role to consumption patterns. The study used a qualitative approach, data collection techniques are through observation, interviews, and documentation on farming households. The data was analysed qualitative descriptively. The results found that: 1) The revenue contribution of women who play double role in the informal sector amounted to 34.07% (less than 50%). 2) The main reason that the respondents worked in the informal sector is to be able to send their children to school (34%) and to improve household economy condition (28%). 3) After earning additional income, respondents said that they can contribute to increase the family’s income and to cover the family shortage (82%); 4) Respondents’ opinion to changes in food consumption after performing the dual role is the ability to purchase and provide the desired food (44%) and changing patterns of consumption per day (30%).

Keywords: Dual role, the informal sector, consumption patterns, household income.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1034

Authors: M. H. Chung, B. Y. Lee, Y. Kim, E. K. Rhee

Abstract:

With an increase in the interest in the energy conservation for buildings, and the emergence of many methods and easily-understandable approaches to it, energy conservation has now become the public’s main interest, as compared to in the past when it was only focused upon by experts. This study aims to help the occupants of a building to understand the energy efficiency and consumption of the building by providing them information on the building’s energy efficiency through a mobile application. The energy performance assessment models are proposed on the basis of the actual energy usage and building characteristics such as the architectural scheme and the building equipment. The university buildings in Korea are used as a case to demonstrate the mobile application.

Keywords: Energy consumption, energy performance assessment, mobile application, university buildings.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1878