Search results for: total cost of ownership.

Authors: Asaiel Alohaly

Abstract:

A theoretical framework for corporate governance is needed to bridge the gap between the corporate governance of private companies and State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs). The two dominant models, being shareholder and stakeholder, do not always address the specific requirements and challenges posed by ‘hybrid’ companies; namely, previously national bodies that have been privatised while the government retains significant control or holds a majority of shares. Thus, an exploratory theoretical study is needed to identify how ‘hybrid’ companies should be defined and why the state model should be acknowledged since it is the less conspicuous model in comparison with the shareholder and stakeholder models. This research focuses on the state model of corporate governance to understand the complex ownership, control pattern, goals, and corporate governance of these hybrid companies. The significance of this research lies in the fact that there is a limited available publication on the state model. This research argues for the state model, which proceeds from an understanding of the institutionally embedded characteristics of hybrid companies, where the government as a shareholder, is either a majority of the total shares, or has been granted power based on the rule of law; the company bylaws.

Keywords: Corporate governance, control, shareholders, state model.

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Authors: Yuan-Jye Tseng, Jia-Shu Li

Abstract:

To design a product with the given product requirement and design objective, there can be alternative ways to propose the detailed design specifications of the product. In the design modeling stage, alternative design cases with detailed specifications can be modeled to fulfill the product requirement and design objective. Therefore, in the design evaluation stage, it is required to perform an evaluation of the alternative design cases for deciding the final design. The purpose of this research is to develop a product evaluation model for evaluating the alternative design cases by integrated evaluating the criteria of functional design, Kansei design, and design for supply chain. The criteria in the functional design group include primary function, expansion function, improved function, and new function. The criteria in the Kansei group include geometric shape, dimension, surface finish, and layout. The criteria in the design for supply chain group include material, manufacturing process, assembly, and supply chain operation. From the point of view of value and cost, the criteria in the functional design group and Kansei design group represent the design value of the product. The criteria in the design for supply chain group represent the supply chain and manufacturing cost of the product. It is required to evaluate the design value and the supply chain cost to determine the final design. For the purpose of evaluating the criteria in the three criteria groups, a fuzzy analytic network process (FANP) method is presented to evaluate a weighted index by calculating the total relational values among the three groups. A method using the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) is used to compare and rank the design alternative cases according to the weighted index using the total relational values of the criteria. The final decision of a design case can be determined by using the ordered ranking. For example, the design case with the top ranking can be selected as the final design case. Based on the criteria in the evaluation, the design objective can be achieved with a combined and weighted effect of the design value and manufacturing cost. An example product is demonstrated and illustrated in the presentation. It shows that the design evaluation model is useful for integrated evaluation of functional design, Kansei design, and design for supply chain to determine the best design case and achieve the design objective.

Keywords: Design evaluation, functional design, Kansei design, supply chain, design value, manufacturing cost, fuzzy analytic network process, technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution.

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Authors: H. Iranmanesh, M. R. Skandari, M. Allahverdiloo

Abstract:

Project managers are the ultimate responsible for the overall characteristics of a project, i.e. they should deliver the project on time with minimum cost and with maximum quality. It is vital for any manager to decide a trade-off between these conflicting objectives and they will be benefited of any scientific decision support tool. Our work will try to determine optimal solutions (rather than a single optimal solution) from which the project manager will select his desirable choice to run the project. In this paper, the problem in project scheduling notated as (1,T|cpm,disc,mu|curve:quality,time,cost) will be studied. The problem is multi-objective and the purpose is finding the Pareto optimal front of time, cost and quality of a project (curve:quality,time,cost), whose activities belong to a start to finish activity relationship network (cpm) and they can be done in different possible modes (mu) which are non-continuous or discrete (disc), and each mode has a different cost, time and quality . The project is constrained to a non-renewable resource i.e. money (1,T). Because the problem is NP-Hard, to solve the problem, a meta-heuristic is developed based on a version of genetic algorithm specially adapted to solve multi-objective problems namely FastPGA. A sample project with 30 activities is generated and then solved by the proposed method.

Keywords: FastPGA, Multi-Execution Activity Mode, ParetoOptimality, Project Scheduling, Time-Cost-Quality Trade-Off.

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Authors: H. Iranmanesh, M. R. Skandari, M. Allahverdiloo

Abstract:

Project managers are the ultimate responsible for the overall characteristics of a project, i.e. they should deliver the project on time with minimum cost and with maximum quality. It is vital for any manager to decide a trade-off between these conflicting objectives and they will be benefited of any scientific decision support tool. Our work will try to determine optimal solutions (rather than a single optimal solution) from which the project manager will select his desirable choice to run the project. In this paper, the problem in project scheduling notated as (1,T|cpm,disc,mu|curve:quality,time,cost) will be studied. The problem is multi-objective and the purpose is finding the Pareto optimal front of time, cost and quality of a project (curve:quality,time,cost), whose activities belong to a start to finish activity relationship network (cpm) and they can be done in different possible modes (mu) which are non-continuous or discrete (disc), and each mode has a different cost, time and quality . The project is constrained to a non-renewable resource i.e. money (1,T). Because the problem is NP-Hard, to solve the problem, a meta-heuristic is developed based on a version of genetic algorithm specially adapted to solve multi-objective problems namely FastPGA. A sample project with 30 activities is generated and then solved by the proposed method.

Keywords: FastPGA, Multi-Execution Activity Mode, Pareto Optimality, Project Scheduling, Time-Cost-Quality Trade-Off.

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Authors: Jack R. McKenzie, Peter A. Appleby, Thomas House, Neil Walton

Abstract:

Cold-start is a notoriously difficult problem which can occur in recommendation systems, and arises when there is insufficient information to draw inferences for users or items. To address this challenge, a contextual bandit algorithm – the Fast Approximate Bayesian Contextual Cold Start Learning algorithm (FAB-COST) – is proposed, which is designed to provide improved accuracy compared to the traditionally used Laplace approximation in the logistic contextual bandit, while controlling both algorithmic complexity and computational cost. To this end, FAB-COST uses a combination of two moment projection variational methods: Expectation Propagation (EP), which performs well at the cold start, but becomes slow as the amount of data increases; and Assumed Density Filtering (ADF), which has slower growth of computational cost with data size but requires more data to obtain an acceptable level of accuracy. By switching from EP to ADF when the dataset becomes large, it is able to exploit their complementary strengths. The empirical justification for FAB-COST is presented, and systematically compared to other approaches on simulated data. In a benchmark against the Laplace approximation on real data consisting of over 670, 000 impressions from autotrader.co.uk, FAB-COST demonstrates at one point increase of over 16% in user clicks. On the basis of these results, it is argued that FAB-COST is likely to be an attractive approach to cold-start recommendation systems in a variety of contexts.

Keywords: Cold-start, expectation propagation, multi-armed bandits, Thompson sampling, variational inference.

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Authors: B. Keawaram, P. Dumrongchai

Abstract:

The volume of overburden and coal excavations in open-pit mine is generally determined by conventional survey such as total station. This study aimed to evaluate the accuracy of terrestrial laser scanner (TLS) used to measure overburden and coal excavations, and to compare TLS survey data sets with the data of the total station. Results revealed that, the reference points measured with the total station showed 0.2 mm precision for both horizontal and vertical coordinates. When using TLS on the same points, the standard deviations of 4.93 cm and 0.53 cm for horizontal and vertical coordinates, respectively, were achieved. For volume measurements covering the mining areas of 79,844 m², TLS yielded the mean difference of about 1% and the surface error margin of 6 cm at the 95% confidence level when compared to the volume obtained by total station.

Keywords: Mine, survey, terrestrial laser scanner, total station.

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Authors: Jianbo Hu, Hongbao Wang

Abstract:

The widely used Total Variation de-noising algorithm can preserve sharp edge, while removing noise. However, since fixed regularization parameter over entire image, small details and textures are often lost in the process. In this paper, we propose a modified Total Variation algorithm to better preserve smaller-scaled features. This is done by allowing an adaptive regularization parameter to control the amount of de-noising in any region of image, according to relative information of local feature scale. Experimental results demonstrate the efficient of the proposed algorithm. Compared with standard Total Variation, our algorithm can better preserve smaller-scaled features and show better performance.

Keywords: Adaptive, de-noising, feature scale, regularizationparameter, Total Variation.

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Authors: J. Khorshidi, E. Zare, A.R. Khademi

Abstract:

The reduction of energy consumption through improvements in energy efficiency has become an important goal for all industries, in order to improve the efficiency of the economy, and to reduce the emissions of Co₂ caused by power generation. The objective of this paper is to investigate opportunities to increase process energy efficiency at the distillation unit of Shiraz oil refinery in south of Iran. The main aim of the project is to locate energy savings by use of pinch technology and to assess them. At first all the required data of hot and cold streams in preheating section of distillation unit has been extracted from the available flow sheets and then pinch analysis has been conducted. The present case study is a threshold one which does not need any utilities. After running range, targeting several heat exchanger networks were designed with respect to operating conditions and different ΔT_min. The optimal value of ΔT_min was calculated to be 22.3 °C. Based on this optimal value, there will be 5% reduction in annual total cost of heat exchanger network.

Keywords: Pinch technology, heat exchanger network, operating cost.

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Authors: Fayza Obied-Allah

Abstract:

Customer’ needs, quality, and value creation while reducing costs through supply chain management provides challenges and opportunities for companies and researchers. In the light of these challenges, modern ideas must contribute to counter these challenges and exploit opportunities. Therefore, this paper discusses the impact of the quality cost on revenue sharing as a most important incentive to configure business networks. This paper develops the quality cost approach to align with the modern era. It develops a model to measure quality costs which might enable firms to manage revenue sharing in a supply chain. The developed model includes five categories; besides the well-known four categories (namely prevention costs, appraisal costs, internal failure costs, and external failure costs), a new category has been developed in this research as a new vision of the relationship between quality costs and innovations in industry. This new category is Recycle Cost. This paper also examines whether such quality costs in supply chains influence the revenue sharing between partners. Using the author's quality cost model, the relationship between quality costs and revenue sharing among partners is examined using a case study in an Egyptian manufacturing company which is a part of a supply chain. This paper argues that the revenue-sharing proportion allocated to supplier increases as the recycle cost of supplier increases, and the revenue-sharing proportion allocated to manufacturer increases as the prevention and appraisal costs increase, as well as the failure costs, the recycle costs of manufacturer, and the recycle costs of suppliers decrease. However, the results present surprising findings. The purposes of this study are developing quality cost approach and understanding the relationships between quality costs and revenue sharing in supply chains. Therefore, the present study contributes to theory and practice by explaining how the cost of recycling can be combined in quality cost model to better understanding the revenue sharing among partners in supply chains.

Keywords: Quality cost, Recycle cost, Revenue sharing, Supply chain.

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Authors: Kamarularifin Abd Jalil, John Dunlop

Abstract:

A Personal Distributed Environment (PDE) is an example of an IP-based system architecture designed for future mobile communications. In a single PDE, there exist several Subnetworks hosting devices located across the infrastructure, which will inter-work with one another through the coordination of a Device Management Entity (DME). Some of these Sub-networks are fixed and some are mobile. In order to support Mobile Sub-networks mobility in the PDE, the PDE-NEMO protocol was proposed. This paper discussed the signalling cost analysis of PDE-NEMO by use of a detailed simulation model. The paper started with the introduction of the protocol, followed by the experiments and results and then followed by discussions.

Keywords: Mobile Network, PDE-NEMO, Signallling Cost.

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Authors: Toshihiko Sasama, Takao Kawamura, Kazunori Sugahara

Abstract:

Using Internet communication, new home electronics have functions of monitoring and control from remote. However in many case these electronics work as standalone, and old electronics are not followed. Then, we developed the total remote system include not only new electronics but olds. This systems node is a adapter of electrical power plug that embed relay switch and some sensors, and these nodes communicate with each other. the system server was build on the Internet, and users access to this system from web browsers. To reduce the cost to set up of this system, communication between adapters are used ZigBee wireless network instead of wired LAN cable[3]. From measured RSSI(received signal strength indicator) information between each nodes, the system can estimate roughly adapters were mounted on which room, and where in the room. So also it reduces the cost of mapping nodes. Using this system, energy saving and house monitoring are expected.

Keywords: outlet, remote monitor, remote control, mobile ad hocnetwork, sensor network, zigbee.

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Authors: Samee Ullah Khan, Ishfaq Ahmad

Abstract:

This paper proposes a novel game theoretical technique to address the problem of data object replication in largescale distributed computing systems. The proposed technique draws inspiration from computational economic theory and employs the extended Vickrey auction. Specifically, players in a non-cooperative environment compete for server-side scarce memory space to replicate data objects so as to minimize the total network object transfer cost, while maintaining object concurrency. Optimization of such a cost in turn leads to load balancing, fault-tolerance and reduced user access time. The method is experimentally evaluated against four well-known techniques from the literature: branch and bound, greedy, bin-packing and genetic algorithms. The experimental results reveal that the proposed approach outperforms the four techniques in both the execution time and solution quality.

Keywords: Auctions, data replication, pricing, static allocation.

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Authors: Alireza Azimi Sani , Mahdi Allahverdizadeh

Abstract:

increased competition and increased costs of designing made it important for the firms to identify the right products and the right methods for manufacturing the products. Firms should focus on customers and identify customer demands directly to design the right products. Several management methods and techniques that are currently available improve one or more functions or processes in an industry and do not take the complete product life cycle into consideration. On the other hand target costing is a method / philosophy that takes financial, manufacturing and customer aspects into consideration during designing phase and helps firms in making product design decisions to increase the profit / value of the company. It uses various techniques to identify customer demands, to decrease costs of manufacturing and finally to achieve strategic goals. Target Costing forms an integral part of total product design / redesign based on strategic plans.

Keywords: Target Costing, Target Cost Management, Cost Management, Activity Based Costing, New product design

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Authors: Dimitra Alexiou, Stefanos Katsavounis, Ria Kalfakakou

Abstract:

In an urban area the determination of transportation routes should be planned so as to minimize the provoked pollution taking into account the cost of such routes. In the sequel these routes are cited as pollution routes.

The transportation network is expressed by a weighted graph G=(V,E,D,P) where every vertex represents a location to be served and E contains unordered pairs (edges) of elements in V that indicate a simple road. The distances / cost and a weight that depict the provoked air pollution by a vehicle transition at every road are assigned to each road as well. These are the items of set D and P respectively.

Furthermore the investigated pollution routes must not exceed predefined corresponding values concerning the route cost and the route pollution level during the vehicle transition.

In this paper we present an algorithm that generates such routes in order that the decision maker selects the most appropriate one. 

Keywords: bi-criteria, pollution, shortest paths.

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Authors: Xijian Wang

Abstract:

This paper is concerned with the numerical minimization of energy functionals in BV ( ) (the space of bounded variation functions) involving total variation for gray-scale 1-dimensional inpainting problem. Applications are shown by finite element method and discontinuous Galerkin method for total variation minimization. We include the numerical examples which show the different recovery image by these two methods.

Keywords: finite element method, discontinuous Galerkin method, total variation minimization, inpainting

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Authors: Reza Sedaghati

Abstract:

Given the increasing energy demand in the world as well as limited fossil energy fuel resources, it is necessary to use renewable energy resources more than ever. Developing a hybrid energy system is suggested to overcome the intermittence of renewable energy resources such as sun and wind, in which the excess electrical energy can be converted and stored. While these resources store the energy, they can provide a more reliable system that is really suitable for off-grid applications. In hybrid systems, a methodology for optimal sizing of power generation systems components is of great importance in terms of economic aspects and efficiency. In this study, a hybrid energy system is designed to supply an off-grid sample load pattern with the aim of supplying necessary energy and minimizing the total production cost throughout the system life as well as increasing the reliability. For this purpose, the optimal size and the cost function of these resources is determined and minimized using evolutionary algorithms and system efficiency is studied with real-time load and meteorological information of Kazerun, a city in southern Iran under different conditions.

Keywords: Hybrid energy system, intelligent method, optimal size, minimal.

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Authors: M. Saravanan, J. Raja Murugadoss, V. Jayanthi

Abstract:

Optimal design of structure has a main role in reduction of material usage which leads to deduction in the final cost of construction projects. Evolutionary approaches are found to be more successful techniques for solving size and shape structural optimization problem since it uses a stochastic random search instead of a gradient search. By reviewing the recent literature works the problem found was the optimization of weight. A new meta-heuristic algorithm called as Cuckoo Search (CS) Algorithm has used for the optimization of the total weight of the truss structures. This paper has used set of 10 bars and 25 bars trusses for the testing purpose. The main objective of this work is to reduce the number of iterations, weight and the total time consumption. In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the present method, minimum weight design of truss structures is performed and the results of the CS are compared with other algorithms.

Keywords: Cuckoo search algorithm, levy’s flight, meta-heuristic, optimal weight.

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Authors: Lo Kar Yin, Law Ka Mei

Abstract:

Architectural, engineering, construction and operations (AECO) industry practitioners have been well adapting to the dynamic construction market from the fundamental training of its disciplines. As further triggered by the pandemic since 2019, great steps are taken in virtual environment and the best collaboration is strived with project teams without boundaries. With adoption of Building Information Modeling-based approach and qualitative analysis, this paper is to review quantity take-off (QTO) and cost estimation process through modeling techniques in liaison with suppliers, fabricators, subcontractors, contractors, designers, consultants and services providers in the construction industry value chain for automatic project cost budgeting, project cost control and cost evaluation on design options of in-situ reinforced-concrete construction and Modular Integrated Construction (MiC) at design stage, variation of works and cash flow/spending analysis at construction stage as far as practicable, with a view to sharing the findings for enhancing mutual trust and co-operation among AECO industry practitioners. It is to foster development through a common prototype of design and build project delivery method in NEC4 Engineering and Construction Contract (ECC) Options A and C.

Keywords: Building Information Modeling, cost estimation, quantity take-off, modeling techniques.

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Authors: Chih-Cheng Chen, Meng-Lung Lin, Yung-Tan Lee Tsun-I Hsiao, Yi-Cheng Chen

Abstract:

The Taiwan government has invested approximately 21 billion NT dollars in the construction of bicycle paths since bicycling has gained huge popularity as a healthy leisure and recreational activity. This study focuses on the behavior of recreational bicyclists in Danshuei and Bali, northern Taiwan. Data were collected from a field investigation carried out along the Danshuei bicycle path and Bali left-bank bicycle path. A total of 578 questionnaires were gathered for data analysis. Descriptive statistics and Chi-Square tests were used to assess bicyclists- behaviors. The frequency shows that, in these areas, Danshuei and Bali, most bicyclists rented bicycles, rode the bicycle path in the afternoon for about 2 hours. The used the bicycle path one time per week. For most, it was the first time to ride these bicycle paths. There were significant differences in distribution of bicycle ownership, time of day, duration of ride, ride frequency, and whether riding occurred on weekdays or weekends. Results indicated that most bicyclists in Danshuei and Bali were infrequent users.

Keywords: recreational bicyclist, bicyclist behaviors, NorthernTaiwan

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Authors: Bharti Negi, Gargi Dey

Abstract:

This is the first report from India on a beverage resulting from alcoholic fermentation of the juice of sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides L) using lab isolated yeast strain. The health promoting potential of the product was evaluated based on its total phenolic content. The most important finding was that under the present fermentation condition, the total phenolic content of the wine product was 689 mg GAE/L. Investigation of influence of bottle ageing on the sea buckthorn wine showed a slight decrease in the phenolic content (534 m mg GAE/L). This study also includes the comparative analysis of the phenolic content of wines from other selected fruit juices like grape, apple and black currant. KeywordsAlcoholic fermentation, Hippophae, Total phenolic content, Wine

Keywords: Alcoholic fermentation, Hippophae, Total phenolic content, Wine

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Authors: Dejan Prvulović, Djordje Malenčić, Milan Popović, Mirjana Ljubojević, Vladislav Ognjanov

Abstract:

Sweet cherries (Prunus avium L.) contain various phenolic compounds which contribute to total antioxidant activity. Total polyphenols, tannins, flavonoids and anthocyanins, and antioxidant capacity in a fruits of a number of selected sweet cherry genotypes were investigated. Total polyphenols content ranged from 4.12 to 8.34 mg gallic acid equivantents/g dry fruit weight and total tannins content ranged from 0.19 to 1.95 mg gallic acid equivalent/g dry fruit weight. Total flavonoids were within the range 0.42-1.56 mg of rutin equivalents/g dry fruit weight and total anthocyanins content were between 0.35 and 0.69 mg cyanidin 3-glucoside equivalent/ g dry fruit weight. Although sweet cherry fruits are a significant source of different phenolic compounds, antioxidant activity of sweet cherries is not related only with the total polyphenolics, flavonoids or anthocyanins.

Keywords: antioxidant activity, polyphenols, Prunus avium L., sweet cherry

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Authors: M. Pisol B Mat Isa, Asmak Ab Rahman, Hezlina Bt M Hashim, Abd Mutalib B Embong

Abstract:

Al-Murabahah is an Islamic financing facility used in asset financing, the profit rate of the contract is determined by components which are also being used in the conventional banking. Such are cost of fund, overhead cost, risk premium cost and bank-s profit margin. At the same time, the profit rate determined by Islamic banking system also refers to Inter-Bank Offered Rate (LIBOR) in London as a benchmark. This practice has risen arguments among Muslim scholars in term of its validity of the contract; whether the contract maintains the Shariah compliance or not. This paper aims to explore the view of Shariah towards the above components practiced by Islamic Banking in determining the profit rate of al-murabahah asset financing in Malaysia. This is a comparative research which applied the views of Muslim scholars from all major mazahibs in Islamic jurisprudence and examined the practices by Islamic banks in Malaysia for the above components. The study found that the shariah accepts all the components with conditions. The cost of fund is accepted as a portion of al-mudarabah-s profit, the overhead cost is accepted as a cost of product, risk premium cost consist of business risk and mitigation risk are accepted through the concept of alta-awun and bank-s profit margin is accepted as a right of bank after venturing in risky investment.

Keywords: Islamic banking, Islamic finance, al-murabahah and asset financing

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Authors: Gert Van Schalkwyk, Chris Cloete

Abstract:

South Africa is experiencing a massive housing backlog in urban low-cost housing. A backlog in the transfer of low-cost housing units is exacerbated by various impediments and delays that exist in the current legal framework. Structured interviews were conducted with 45 practicing conveyancers and 15 deeds office examiners at the Deeds Office in Pretoria, South Africa. One of the largest, the Deeds Office in Pretoria implements a uniform registration process and can be regarded as representative of other deeds offices in South Africa. It was established that a low percentage of low-cost properties are freely transferable. The main economic impediments are the absence of financing and the affordability or payment of rates and taxes to local government. Encroachment of buildings on neighbouring stands caused by enlargement of existing small units on small stands also cause long-term unresolved legal disputes. In addition, as transfer of properties is dependent on the proper functioning of administrative functions of various government departments, the adverse service delivery of government departments hampers transfer. Addressing the identified problems will contribute to a more sustainable process for the transfer of low-cost housing units in South Africa.

Keywords: Conveyancing, low-cost housing, South Africa, tenure, transfer, titling.

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Authors: M Ahmadigorji, A. Abbaspour, A Rajabi-Ghahnavieh, M. Fotuhi- Firuzabad

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DG application has received increasing attention during recent years. The impact of DG on various aspects of distribution system operation, such as reliability and energy loss, depend highly on DG location in distribution feeder. Optimal DG placement is an important subject which has not been fully discussed yet. This paper presents an optimization method to determine optimal DG placement, based on a cost/worth analysis approach. This method considers technical and economical factors such as energy loss, load point reliability indices and DG costs, and particularly, portability of DG. The proposed method is applied to a test system and the impacts of different parameters such as load growth rate and load forecast uncertainty (LFU) on optimum DG location are studied.

Keywords: Distributed generation, optimal placement, cost/worthanalysis, customer interruption cost, Dynamic programming

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Authors: M. A. Hajeeh

Abstract:

Pumping systems are an integral part of water desalination plants, their effective functioning is vital for the operation of a plant. In this research work, the reliability and availability of pressurized pumps in a reverse osmosis desalination plant are studied with the objective of finding configurations that provides optimal performance. Six configurations of a series system with different number of warm and cold standby components were examined. Closed form expressions for the mean time to failure (MTTF) and the long run availability are derived and compared under the assumption that the time between failures and repair times of the primary and standby components are exponentially distributed. Moreover, a cost/ benefit analysis is conducted in order to identify a configuration with the best performance and least cost. It is concluded that configurations with cold standby components are preferable especially when the pumps are of the size.

Keywords: Availability, Cost/ benefit, Mean time to failure, Pumps.

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Authors: Haodong Wu, Ping Huang, Junsan Wang

Abstract:

In China, with the rapid urbanization and industrialization, and highly accelerated economic development have resulted in degradation of water resource. The water quality deterioration usual result from eutrophication in most cases, so how to dispose this type pollution water higher efficiently is an urgent task. Hower, different with traditional technology, constructed wetlands are effective treatment systems that can be very useful because they are simple technology and low operational cost. A pilot-scale treatment including constructed wetlands was constructed at XingYun Lake, Yuxi, China, and operated as primary treatment measure before eutrophic-lake water draining to riverine landscape. Water quality indices were determined during the experiment, the results indicated that treatment removal efficiencies were high for Nitrate nitrogen, Chlorophyll–a and Algae, the final removal efficiency reached to 95.20%, 93.33% and 99.87% respectively, but the removal efficiency of Total phosphorous and Total nitrogen only reach to 68.83% and 50.00% respectively.

Keywords: Constructed wetland, Eutrophic-lake water, Nutrientremoval, Removal efficiency

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Authors: Panagiotis Karadimos, Leonidas Anthopoulos

Abstract:

Predicting the actual cost and duration in construction projects concern a continuous and existing problem for the construction sector. This paper addresses this problem with modern methods and data available from past public construction projects. 39 bridge projects, constructed in Greece, with a similar type of available data were examined. Considering each project’s attributes with the actual cost and the actual duration, correlation analysis is performed and the most appropriate predictive project variables are defined. Additionally, the most efficient subgroup of variables is selected with the use of the WEKA application, through its attribute selection function. The selected variables are used as input neurons for neural network models through correlation analysis. For constructing neural network models, the application FANN Tool is used. The optimum neural network model, for predicting the actual cost, produced a mean squared error with a value of 3.84886e-05 and it was based on the budgeted cost and the quantity of deck concrete. The optimum neural network model, for predicting the actual duration, produced a mean squared error with a value of 5.89463e-05 and it also was based on the budgeted cost and the amount of deck concrete.

Keywords: Actual cost and duration, attribute selection, bridge projects, neural networks, predicting models, FANN TOOL, WEKA.

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Authors: Murat Ayyıldız, Oya Kalıpsız, Sırma Yavuz

Abstract:

Software project effort estimation is frequently seen as complex and expensive for individual software engineers. Software production is in a crisis. It suffers from excessive costs. Software production is often out of control. It has been suggested that software production is out of control because we do not measure. You cannot control what you cannot measure. During last decade, a number of researches on cost estimation have been conducted. The metric-set selection has a vital role in software cost estimation studies; its importance has been ignored especially in neural network based studies. In this study we have explored the reasons of those disappointing results and implemented different neural network models using augmented new metrics. The results obtained are compared with previous studies using traditional metrics. To be able to make comparisons, two types of data have been used. The first part of the data is taken from the Constructive Cost Model (COCOMO'81) which is commonly used in previous studies and the second part is collected according to new metrics in a leading international company in Turkey. The accuracy of the selected metrics and the data samples are verified using statistical techniques. The model presented here is based on Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP). Another difficulty associated with the cost estimation studies is the fact that the data collection requires time and care. To make a more thorough use of the samples collected, k-fold, cross validation method is also implemented. It is concluded that, as long as an accurate and quantifiable set of metrics are defined and measured correctly, neural networks can be applied in software cost estimation studies with success

Keywords: Software Metrics, Software Cost Estimation, Neural Network.

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Authors: Guoliang Fan, Aiping Li, Nan Xie, Liyun Xu, Xuemei Liu

Abstract:

Mass customization production increases the difficulty of the production line layout planning. The material distribution process for variety of parts is very complex, which greatly increases the cost of material handling and logistics. In response to this problem, this paper presents an approach of production line layout planning based on complexity measurement. Firstly, by analyzing the influencing factors of equipment layout, the complexity model of production line is established by using information entropy theory. Then, the cost of the part logistics is derived considering different variety of parts. Furthermore, the function of optimization including two objectives of the lowest cost, and the least configuration complexity is built. Finally, the validity of the function is verified in a case study. The results show that the proposed approach may find the layout scheme with the lowest logistics cost and the least complexity. Optimized production line layout planning can effectively improve production efficiency and equipment utilization with lowest cost and complexity.

Keywords: Production line, layout planning, complexity measurement, optimization, mass customization.

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Authors: Felix Baumann, Aleksandar Milutinovic, Dieter Roller

Abstract:

Up to this point business process management projects in general and business process modelling projects in particular could not rely on a practical and scientifically validated method to estimate cost and effort. Especially the model development phase is not covered by a cost estimation method or model. Further phases of business process modelling starting with implementation are covered by initial solutions which are discussed in the literature. This article proposes a method of filling this gap by deriving a cost estimation method from available methods in similar domains namely software development or software engineering. Software development is regarded as closely similar to process modelling as we show. After the proposition of this method different ideas for further analysis and validation of the method are proposed. We derive this method from COCOMO II and Function Point which are established methods of effort estimation in the domain of software development. For this we lay out similarities of the software development process and the process of process modelling which is a phase of the Business Process Management life-cycle.

Keywords: Cost Estimation, Effort Estimation, Process Modelling, Business Process Management, COCOMO.

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