The cost of microalgae harvesting constitutes a heavy burden on the commercialization of biofuel production. The present study addressed this problem through economic and parametric comparison of electrochemical harvesting using a sacrificial electrode (aluminum) and a nonsacrificial electrode (graphite). The harvesting efficiency, power consumption, and operation cost were collected as objective variables as a function of applied current and initial pH of the solution. The results indicated that high harvesting efficiency obtained by using aluminum anode is achieved in short electrolysis time. That harvesting efficiency can be enhanced by increasing the applied current or the electrolysis time for both electrode materials, where 98% of harvesting efficiency can be obtained. The results also demonstrated that the power consumption with the graphite anode is higher than that of aluminum. However, at 0.2 A the local cost of operation with graphite (0.036 US$/m3) is distinctly lower than that of aluminum (0.08 US$/m3). Furthermore, the harvesting efficiency reached its higher value at short electrolysis time at an initial pH of 6 for aluminum, and at an initial pH of 4 for graphite. Consequently, the power consumption of the harvesting process could be reduced at acid- nature conditions to around 0.46 kWh/kg for aluminum and 1.12 kWh/kg for graphite.
Variation orders are an on-going phenomenon in construction and industry projects worldwide, particularly in the province of Sulaimani, where the project's damage from cost and schedule overrun because of variation orders. However, the effect on project costs and time overrun of variation order has yet to be identified. This study evaluates the impact of variation orders on the cost and time off in the Sulaimani governorate. Two hundred twenty-eight projects from various construction sectors built between 2007-2012 were adopted to calculate the contract cost and schedule overruns due to variation orders. Data analysis was applied in the study were descriptive statistics. One-way ANOVA was also applied to determine w
... Show MoreArtificial Intelligence Algorithms have been used in recent years in many scientific fields. We suggest employing artificial TABU algorithm to find the best estimate of the semi-parametric regression function with measurement errors in the explanatory variables and the dependent variable, where measurement errors appear frequently in fields such as sport, chemistry, biological sciences, medicine, and epidemiological studies, rather than an exact measurement.
In the field of construction project management, time and cost are the most important factors to be considered in planning every project, and their relationship is complex. The total cost for each project is the sum of the direct and indirect cost. Direct cost commonly represents labor, materials, equipment, etc.
Indirect cost generally represents overhead cost such as supervision, administration, consultants, and interests. Direct cost grows at an increasing rate as the project time is reduced from its original planned time. However, indirect cost continues for the life of the project and any reduction in project time means a reduction in indirect cost. Therefore, there is a trade-off between the time and cost for completing construc
A high sensitivity, low power and low cost sensor has been developed for photoplethysmography (PPG) measurement. The PPG principle was applied to follow the dilatation and contraction of skin blood vessels during the cardiac cycle. A standard light emitting diodes (LEDs) has been used as a light emitter and detector, and in order to reduce the space, cost and power, the classical analogue-to-digital converters (ADCs) replaced by the pulse-based signal conversion techniques. A general purpose microcontroller has been used for the implementation of measurement protocol. The proposed approach leads to better spectral sensitivity, increased resolution, reduction in cost, dimensions and power consumption. The basic sensing configuration prese
... Show MoreThe disposal of the waste material is the main goal of this investigation by transformation to high-fineness powder and producing self-consolidation concrete (SCC) with less cost and more eco-friendly by reducing the cement weight, taking into consideration the fresh and strength properties. The reference mix design was prepared by adopting the European guide. Five waste materials (clay brick, ceramic, granite tiles, marble tiles, and thermostone blocks) were converted to high-fine particle size distribution and then used as 5, 10, and 15% weight replacements of cement. The improvement in strength properties is more significant when using clay bricks compared to other activated waste
The disposal of the waste material is the main goal of this investigation by transformation to high-fineness powder and producing self-consolidation concrete (SCC) with less cost and more eco-friendly by reducing the cement weight, taking into consideration the fresh and strength properties. The reference mix design was prepared by adopting the European guide. Five waste materials (clay brick, ceramic, granite tiles, marble tiles, and thermostone blocks) were converted to high-fine particle size distribution and then used as 5, 10, and 15% weight replacements of cement. The improvement in strength properties is more significant when using clay bricks compared to other activated waste
In this study, plastic wastes named (PET and PVC) were used to prepare polymer matrix composite (PMC) which can be used in different applications. Composite materials were prepared by mixing unsaturated polyester resin (UP) with plastic wastes, two types of plastic waste were used in this work included polyethylene-terephthalate (PET) and Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) with various weight fractions (0, 5,10,15, 20 and 25%) added as a filler in flakes form. In this work, some of the tests that were carried out included (tensile, bending, and compressive strength) as mechanical tests, in addition to (thermal conductivity and water absorption) as physical tests. The values of tensile, compressive strength and Young's modulus of UP increased after
... Show MoreThe last ten years observed a shift enormous scientific in the method and way that it deals professional with the cost accounting and reflected the result those shift enormous scientific of increase the competitive environmental that accompanied the emergence of a modern manufacturing environmental on surface the long roductive life and emergence advanced information technology that give a central focus of his important on client with growing global markets growth on a large scale.
The research aim to define the concept of cost awareness, the concept and methods of strategic cost management and the role of cost awareness for managers of industrial units in strategic of cost managem
... Show MoreAbstract
The problem of missing data represents a major obstacle before researchers in the process of data analysis in different fields since , this problem is a recurrent one in all fields of study including social , medical , astronomical and clinical experiments .
The presence of such a problem within the data to be studied may influence negatively on the analysis and it may lead to misleading conclusions , together with the fact that these conclusions that result from a great bias caused by that problem in spite of the efficiency of wavelet methods but they are also affected by the missing of data , in addition to the impact of the problem of miss of accuracy estimation
... Show MoreThis investigation aimed to explain the mechanism of MFCA by applying this method on air-cooled engine factory which was suffering from high production cost. The results of this study revealed that MFCA is a useful tool to identify losses and inefficiencies of the production process. It is found that the factory is suffering from high losses due to material energy and system losses. In conclusion, it is calculated that system losses are the highest among all the losses due to inefficient use of available production capacity.