Hasil untuk "Costs"

R. Lucas

S. Masten, J. Meehan, Edward A. Snyder

B. Boehm, P. N. Papaccio

H. Leland.

F. Foster, S. Viswanathan

Phum Pinthanon, Suchada Rianmora, Pisal Yenradee

This research presents an innovative 330-ml beverage packaging solution that merges accessibility, design, and ergonomics for user comfort. The design incorporates shape principles, clear typography, and minimalist colours and symbols, balancing visual appeal and functionality. As demand for attractive options grows, this study investigates consumer preferences through surveys and interviews. It identifies key factors influencing choices, enhancing the design through quality function deployment (QFD) and product design development (PDD) methodologies. This approach integrates shape design, typography, and colour theory to meet aesthetic and functional needs. The packaging features ‘a bear-paw-shaped watermark’ for stability and ergonomic design for comfortable handling. A minimalist label, with fruit-inspired illustrations, modern fonts, and finishes like matte or glossy, enhances visual appeal. The ‘Trendy-Bottle Design Platform’ aids creation with templates, 3D visualisation, and collaboration tools. Key elements like brand details, nutritional facts, allergen information, a recycle sign, and sustainability symbols ensure functionality and alignment with consumer needs. From a customer perspective, trendy bottles should offer ergonomic designs, spill-proof functionality, eco-friendly materials, and affordability. Manufacturing considerations include optimising shelf space, with rectangular bottles saving space despite higher costs, and rounded bottles saving material but increasing shelf costs. Collaboration ensures moulds meet aesthetic and functional needs, improving appeal.

Yameng Qiao, Wenzheng Liu, Fanzhen Wang et al.

Individual recognition of Hu sheep is a core requirement for precision livestock management, significantly improving breeding efficiency and fine management. However, traditional machine vision methods face challenges such as high annotation time costs, the inability to quickly annotate new sheep, and the need for manual intervention and retraining. To address these issues, this study proposes a solution that integrates automatic annotation and transfer learning, developing a sheep face recognition algorithm that adapts to complex farming environments and can quickly learn the characteristics of new Hu sheep individuals. First, through multi-view video collection and data augmentation, a dataset consisting of 82 Hu sheep and a total of 6055 images was created. Additionally, a sheep face detection and automatic annotation algorithm was designed, reducing the annotation time per image to 0.014 min compared to traditional manual annotation. Next, the YOLOv10n-CF-Lite model is proposed, which improved the recognition precision of Hu sheep faces to 92.3%, and the mAP@0.5 to 96.2%. To enhance the model’s adaptability and generalization ability for new sheep, transfer learning was applied to transfer the YOLOv10n-CF-Lite model trained on the source domain (82 Hu sheep) to the target domain (10 new Hu sheep). The recognition precision in the target domain increased from 91.2% to 94.9%, and the mAP@0.5 improved from 96.3% to 97%. Additionally, the model’s convergence speed was improved, reducing the number of training epochs required for fitting from 43 to 14. In summary, the Hu sheep face recognition algorithm proposed in this study improves annotation efficiency, recognition precision, and convergence speed through automatic annotation and transfer learning. It can quickly adapt to the characteristics of new sheep individuals, providing an efficient and reliable technical solution for the intelligent management of livestock.

Danielle Angeline Hoang, BVisSc, Yicong Liang, BMed, MD, Odette Pheiffer, DipPEC, MBChB et al.

Objective:. This narrative review examined factors contributing to the initiation and outcome of litigation of bile duct injury (BDI) in laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC), with reference to case studies and legal precedents in Australasian and international jurisdictions. It also explored potential strategies to prevent BDI and subsequent malpractice litigation. Background:. Despite the advantages of minimally invasive surgery, the reported iatrogenic BDI rate in LC remains higher than that in some open cholecystectomy series. The resulting BDIs are also more complex and severe. BDI is a serious complication, and medicolegal costs are a substantial burden for healthcare and insurance systems. BDI persists as one of the most common reasons for malpractice lawsuits against general surgeons in the United States and United Kingdom. Methods:. PubMed, Ovid (Medline), Embase, Google Scholar, and Westlaw databases were searched for studies related to BDI in LC and its litigation. Results:. Reasons for initiation of claims after LC include inadequate informed consent and unexpected postoperative course, severe physical disability or death after BDI, belief of medical negligence, and plaintiff loss of income. Identifiable perioperative risk factors for BDI and its litigation should be addressed to minimize BDI, malpractice complaints, and medicolegal costs. Conclusions:. The narrative review of international literature suggested that BDI during the performance of LC and its associated litigation remains preventable. Implementation of heuristics training, navigation paradigms, and a universal culture of safety in the performance of LC is required to improve rates of BDI and medicolegal ramifications.

Tingyi Chai, Chang Liu, Yichuan Xu et al.

The electricity consumption of the textile industry accounts for 2.12% of the total electricity consumption in society, making it one of the high-energy-consuming industries in China. The textile industry requires the use of a large amount of industrial steam at various temperatures during production processes, making its dispatch and operation more complex compared to conventional electricity–heat integrated energy systems. As an important demand-side management platform connecting the grid with distributed resources, a virtual power plant can aggregate textile industry users through an operator, regulating their energy consumption behavior and enhancing demand-side management efficiency. To effectively address the challenges in load regulation for textile industry users, this paper proposes a coordinated optimization dispatching method for electricity–steam virtual-based power plants focused on textile industrial parks. On one hand, targeting the impact of different energy prices on the energy usage behavior of textile industry users, an optimization dispatching model is established where the upper level consists of virtual power plant operators setting energy prices, and the lower level involves multiple textile industry users adjusting their purchase and sale strategies and changing their own energy usage behaviors accordingly. On the other hand, taking into account the energy consumption characteristics of steam, it is possible to optimize the production and storage behaviors of textile industry users during off-peak electricity periods in the power market. Through this electricity–steam optimization dispatching model, the virtual power plant operator’s revenue is maximized while the operating costs for textile industry users are minimized. Case study analyses demonstrate that this strategy can effectively enhance the overall economic benefits of the virtual power plant.

N. Limão, Anthony Venables, Anthony Venables

David R. Bell, Teck-Hua Ho, Christopher S. Tang

Daniel Levy, M. Bergen, S. Dutta et al.

B. Hoekman, Alessandro Nicita

Olufemi Erinoso, Afolabi Oyapero, Oluwabukunmi Familoye et al.

Introduction Health insurance is a health-financing mechanism to protect people from catastrophic healthcare costs and limits out-of-pocket spending on healthcare, which is directly linked to poverty. This study assesses the extent of health-insurance uptake and associated factors in Lagos, Nigeria. Methods We conducted a cross-sectional survey of consenting adults residing in Lagos, Nigeria. Participants were enrolled at general outpatient clinics of four public health facilities in Lagos State. Sociodemographic characteristics and data on health-insurance uptake were obtained and grouped into uninsured, National Health- Insurance Scheme (NHIS) and Private Health-Insurance (PHI). Factors associated with health-insurance uptake was determined using chi-squared tests and logistic regression models. Statistical significance was placed at p<0.05. Results A total of 1000 respondents were enrolled in the study. Overall, 9.5% of participants had health-insurance: NHIS (5.6%) and PHI (3.9%). Males had a higher healthinsurance uptake than females (p=0.035). Respondents who were married had higher odds of health-insurance uptake than those that were single (AOR=2.23; 95% CI: 1.20–4.16; p=0.01). Similarly, respondents who had a secondary-school diploma had higher odds of having a health insurance compared to those with less than a secondary-school education (AOR=5.20; 95% CI: 1.14–23.68; p=0.03). Conclusions Our findings suggest a low rate of healthinsurance uptake in the population. Being male, married and possessing a secondary school diploma or higher were associated with higher odds of health insurance uptake. Policy measures should focus on expanding access to health insurance, particularly among the less educated and the informal employment sector.

Huynh Ngoc Chuong, Nguyen Chi Hai

AbstractThe concept of social capital has gained significant attention in recent years due to its potential for improving individual and collective well-being, and for its significance in shaping social, economic, and political structures. This study aims to measure the social capital of rural Vietnam households with data from 2008 to 2016. The authors identified different aspects of household social capital as well as social capital proxies from livelihood papers. This paper applied the fundamental theories (the resource theories and network theories to measure the household social capital in Vietnam. We propose to apply the MIMIC model (multiple indicator multiple cause model) to construct the household social capital along with integrating the indicators in both views of household social capital. Results highlight the importance of understanding the multifaceted nature of social capital, which includes different forms of social networks, social participation, and social costs. The findings suggest that participation in diverse organizations plays a vital role in the formation of household social capital. In addition, the MIMIC model shows that participation in social networks is the most important factor in the formation of household social capital. Therefore, we give some implications for the measurement as well as characteristics in the social capital of households in Vietnam. The study contributes to the existing literature on social capital by emphasizing the importance of understanding the different aspects of social capital and how they interact with each other in shaping the livelihoods of rural Vietnamese households.

D. F. Iliasov, A. Y. Ivanov, E. O. Kuznetsova

The relevance of the conducted research is determined by the need to control and forecast the costs of enterprises to maintain shutdown nuclear energy facilities in a save condition in order to solve budget planning problems. In the near future, an increase in operating expenses is expected due to an increase in the number of such facilities. To solve the problem econometric forecasting methods are used.Purpose of the research. This study is aimed to develop a methodology for estimating the costs of maintaining nuclear and radiation hazardous facilities in a safe condition and the safe storage of radioactive waste, considering the specifics of accounting at nuclear industry enterprises and forecasting such costs, taking into account plans for shutting down and decommissioning of facilities and removing accumulated radioactive waste from storage facilities in the future.Materials and methods. In the research there was developed the methodology of isolation from the overall structure costs, associated with maintaining shutdown facilities and storage facilities for radioactive waste of nuclear industry enterprises. A cumulative estimation of such costs has been carried out for facilities whose operation for the intended purpose has currently been discontinued. Based on obtained retrospective data, a correlation-regression model with structural changes was developed to predict the costs of maintaining nuclear energy facilities in a safe condition which are expected to be shut down in the future. The developed model allows considering the specifics of facilities, their level of radiation hazard and overall characteristics, the average level of wages at enterprises and the cost of resources.Results. Based on the plans for the shutdown and decommissioning of nuclear energy facilities and the disposal of radioactive waste from storage facilities, the costs of maintaining such facilities in a safe condition with a planning horizon up to 2050 have been forecasted. The results of calculations show that the costs for nuclear energy facilities (except for nuclear power plant units) will increase to 10 billion rubles per year by 2035 (in 2022 prices) and will significantly decrease after 2035 - up to 7.5 billion rubles per year. The reduction will be due to the transfer to a nuclear and radiation safe state of large facilities of radiochemical plants, as well as the conservation of sites for the placement of industrial uranium-graphite reactors. The costs of maintaining the storage facilities of accumulated radioactive waste in a safe condition will be reduced annually (almost linearly) as they are transferred to the disposal of the removed radioactive waste and the conservation of special radioactive waste facilities. By 2035, costs will be reduced from the current level of 5 billion rubles to 4.3 billion rubles per year.Conclusion. The results of the study confirm the high importance of the implementation of the Federal Target Program “Ensuring Nuclear and Radiation Safety for 2016-2020 and for the period up to 2035”, under which it is planned to decommission about 75 stopped nuclear and radiation hazardous facilities and transfer about 155 thousand cubic meters of radioactive waste to disposal.

J. Morgan, G. Bending, P. White

R. Naidoo, T. Ricketts

Resources for biodiversity conservation are severely limited, requiring strategic investment. Understanding both the economic benefits and costs of conserving ecosystems will help to allocate scarce dollars most efficiently. However, although cost-benefit analyses are common in many areas of policy, they are not typically used in conservation planning. We conducted a spatial evaluation of the costs and benefits of conservation for a landscape in the Atlantic forests of Paraguay. We considered five ecosystem services (i.e., sustainable bushmeat harvest, sustainable timber harvest, bioprospecting for pharmaceutical products, existence value, and carbon storage in aboveground biomass) and compared them to estimates of the opportunity costs of conservation. We found a high degree of spatial variability in both costs and benefits over this relatively small (~3,000 km2) landscape. Benefits exceeded costs in some areas, with carbon storage dominating the ecosystem service values and swamping opportunity costs. Other benefits associated with conservation were more modest and exceeded costs only in protected areas and indigenous reserves. We used this cost-benefit information to show that one potential corridor between two large forest patches had net benefits that were three times greater than two otherwise similar alternatives. Spatial cost-benefit analysis can powerfully inform conservation planning, even though the availability of relevant data may be limited, as was the case in our study area. It can help us understand the synergies between biodiversity conservation and economic development when the two are indeed aligned and to clearly understand the trade-offs when they are not.

Laetitia Duval, Elisa Sicuri, Susana Scott et al.

Abstract Background Malaria in pregnancy remains a major health threat in sub-Saharan Africa to both expectant mothers and their unborn children. To date, there have been very few studies focused on the out of pocket costs associated with seeking treatment for malaria during pregnancy. Methods A cross-sectional survey was undertaken in Burkina Faso and The Gambia to estimate the direct and indirect costs associated with outpatient consultations (OP) and inpatient admissions (IP). Direct costs were broken down into medical (admission fees, drug charges, and laboratory fees), and non-medical (transportation and food). Indirect costs reflected time lost due to illness. In total, 220 pregnant women in Burkina Faso and 263 in The Gambia were interviewed about their treatment seeking decisions, expenditure, time use and financial support associated with each malaria episode. Results In Burkina Faso 6.7% sought treatment elsewhere before their OP visits, and 27.1% before their IP visits. This compares to 1.3% for OP and 25.92% for IP in The Gambia. Once at the facility, the average direct costs (out of pocket) were 3.91US$ for an OP visit and 15.38US$ of an IP visit in Burkina Faso, and 0.80US$ for an OP visit and 9.19US$ for an IP visit in The Gambia. Inpatient direct costs were driven by drug costs (9.27US$) and transportation costs (2.72US$) in Burkina Faso and drug costs (3.44 US$) and food costs (3.44 US$) in The Gambia. Indirect costs of IP visits, valued as the opportunity cost of time lost due to the illness, were estimated at 11.85US$ in Burkina Faso and 4.07US$ in The Gambia. The difference across the two countries was mainly due to the longer time of hospitalization in Burkina Faso compared to The Gambia. In The Gambia, the vast majority of pregnant women reported receiving financial support from family members living abroad, most commonly siblings (65%). Conclusions High malaria treatment costs are incurred by pregnant women in Burkina Faso and The Gambia. Beyond the medical costs of fees and drugs, costs in terms of transport, food and time are significant drivers. The role of remittances, particularly their effect on accessing health care, needs further investigation.

Yan Sun

This study investigates a road-rail intermodal routing problem in a hub-and-spoke network. Carbon cap-and-trade policy is accommodated with the routing to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Multiple time windows are employed to enhance customer flexibility and achieve on-time pickup and delivery services. Road service flexibility and resulting truck operations optimization are explored by combining truck departure time planning under traffic restrictions and speed optimization with the routing. To enhance the feasibility and optimality of the problem optimization, the routing problem is formulated in a fuzzy environment where capacity and carbon trading price rate are trapezoidal fuzzy parameters. Based on the customer-centric objective setting, a fuzzy nonlinear optimization model and its linear reformation are given to formulate the proposed routing problem that combines distribution route design, time window selection and truck operations optimization. A robust possibilistic programming approach is developed to optimize the routing problem by obtaining its robust solutions. A case study is presented to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approaches. The results show that the multiple time windows and truck operations optimization can lower the total costs, enhance the optimality robustness and reduce carbon dioxide emissions of the routing optimization. The sensitivity analysis finds that increasing the lower bound of the confidence level in the robust possibilistic programming model improve the robustness and environmental sustainability; however, worsen the economy of the routing optimization.