Budget Shortage Research Articles

OPTIMUM CONSTRUCTION EQUIPMENT FLEETS FOR ROAD SURFACE OPERATIONS

Poor subgrade soil condition which is very sensitive to moisture presents a construction challenge for all pavement engineers. One of the case histories which became a dilemma for the Azadegan freeway in Tehran is the presence of waste material in subgrade soil. This paper discusses the site investigation to gather some useful information about the principal causes of these problems and deals with some in-depth Laboratory tests which have been done in the soil and asphalt laboratory of Tehran municipality. The pavement condition index known as PCI has been calculated to address all the deteriorations and causes to make a good decision. After analyzing all the gathered data, several methods has been discussed, for example, deep mixing, short concrete piles, shredded tires, and injection. Finally based on the lack of facilities and budget shortage, a retaining wall with geogrids has been chosen for this very special case which is right now under traffic flow. The optimum selection of equipment fleets in surface work operations is a key element to the success of any road construction project. For years, computer simulations have been used to predict the performance of construction operations based on process flows and resources utilized. However, simulations in essence are not a resource optimization platform, since all possible resource combinations should be examined within the simulation process itself. This paper proposes a hybrid mechanism that integrates discrete event simulation and genetic algorithms to efficiently determine the best resource combination for the surface work operations in road construction. The paper employs genetic algorithms (GAs) for minimizing the total cost of surface work operations examined. A dynamic link utilizes a simulation engine, which models a road’s surface work operations, to calculate the fitness of the generated chromosomes. An actual case study is further utilized to illustrate the effectiveness and performance of this hybrid mechanism.

Multiple comparisons with a control for exponential location parameters under heteroscedasticity

In this paper, a new design-oriented two-stage two-sided simultaneous confidence intervals, for comparing several exponential populations with control population in terms of location parameters under heteroscedasticity, are proposed. If there is a prior information that the location parameter of k exponential populations are not less than the location parameter of control population, one-sided simultaneous confidence intervals provide more inferential sensitivity than two-sided simultaneous confidence intervals. But the two-sided simultaneous confidence intervals have advantages over the one-sided simultaneous confidence intervals as they provide both lower and upper bounds for the parameters of interest. The proposed design-oriented two-stage two-sided simultaneous confidence intervals provide the benefits of both the two-stage one-sided and two-sided simultaneous confidence intervals. When the additional sample at the second stage may not be available due to the experimental budget shortage or other factors in an experiment, one-stage two-sided confidence intervals are proposed, which combine the advantages of one-stage one-sided and two-sided simultaneous confidence intervals. The critical constants are obtained using the techniques given in Lam [9,10]. These critical constant are compared with the critical constants obtained by Bonferroni inequality techniques and found that critical constant obtained by Lam [9,10] are less conservative than critical constants computed from the Bonferroni inequality technique. Implementation of the proposed simultaneous confidence intervals is demonstrated by a numerical example.

하수처리수 재이용을 통한 도시하천 물순환 및 수질 개선

Current urban stream conditions and their restoration projects were investigated by surveying the urban stream management experts in 29 cities with high population density (more than 1,000person/). The survey results showed that the ratio of covered urban streams decreased by 1.4% (from 14% to 12.6%) in the last 5 years through steady river restoration projects promoted by governments. Nonetheless, 36.3% of 369 urban streams surveyed still report stream depletion problems; therefore, more efforts to alleviate the problems caused by distorted water circulation of urban streams are still necessary. Water depletion in many local urban streams, unlike national rivers, is accelerated due to negligence in stream management, budget shortage, and other reasons. To prevent stream depletion, the use of reclaimed water is suggested as one of the prevention plans. When available amounts of reused sewage are estimated through actual available nationwide sewage discharges of each watershed and instream flow of stream, annual instream flow supply of 780 million is expected; 4.8% reduction in the pollution load of public sewer treatment facilities is expected; and the creation of new value through water reuse service is expected. Thus, it is important for the reviews of feasibility and alternatives of water reuse projects for flow augmentation to consider not only investment budget reductions, but also environmental aspects. Also it is necessary to provide the financial support of unified government with strict water quality management policy.

Effective use of cloud computing in educational institutions

Cloud computing is becoming an adoptable technology for many of the organizations with its dynamic scalability and usage of virtualized resources as a service through the Internet. It will likely have a significant impact on the educational environment in the future. Cloud computing is an excellent alternative for educational institutions which are especially under budget shortage in order to operate their information systems effectively without spending any more capital for the computers and network devices. Universities take advantage of available cloud-based applications offered by service providers and enable their own users/students to perform business and academic tasks. In this paper, we will review what the cloud computing infrastructure will provide in the educational arena, especially in the universities where the use of computers are more intensive and what can be done to increase the benefits of common applications for students and teachers.

ONE-STAGE AND TWO-STAGE STATISTICAL INFERENCE UNDER HETEROSCEDASTICITY

This paper presents general one-stage and two-stage sampling procedures for testing the hypotheses of the equality of means when the variances are unknown and unequal. The methods use a new range test and an ANOVA test based on independent t variables for an one-way layout. The one-stage procedure is an exact statistical procedure which provides a feasible solution to the two-stage procedure when the required two-stage sample sizes are not met due to time limitation, budget shortage, or other factors that result in early termination of the experiment. An extension to the two-way layout is also considered and the percentage points of the range test for testing the associated hypotheses are tabulated.